Activities and Accomplishments
The Sentinels' primary activities consisted of organized opposition to expansions of the federal government, which they saw as unconstitutional encroachment on the rights of the States and of the individual. Key targets included the creation of the Department of Education, the New Deal, and child labor legislation.
In 1924-1925 the Sentinels garnered national attention when, under the leadership of Louis A. Coolidge, they successfully swayed Massachusetts opinion against the Child Labor Act. They persuaded key Massachusetts constituents to oppose the Child Labor Act by convincing them that it had Bolshevistic origins, and that it would lead to extreme consequences; e.g. denying a teenager of the right to help his widowed mother support his siblings, or even to assist with household and farm chores. The Sentinels also claimed that the proponents of the Child Labor Act wanted to remove children from the influence of their families and the authority of their parents.
Following Coolidge's death in 1925, Bentley Wirt Warren became the Sentinels' second president. Under Warren, the Sentinels continued their efforts to oppose the Sheppard–Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act of 1821 and the creation of a federal office of education. By 1927, in good part due to a flood of speakers, pamphlets, letters, and telegrams from the Sentinels, the latter was defeated.
In 1926, in a fund-raising pamphlet entitled "To Arms! To Arms!", the organization boasted that it had "card-indexed more than 2000 radical propagandists making it comparatively easy to check their movements and counteract their activities."
Alexander Lincoln succeeded Warren as president, and it was during his term that the Sentinels achieved their greatest prominence. During the mid-1930s, anti-New-Deal sentiment in the business community led to a substantial increase the Sentinels' standing and financial support.
The Sentinels held annual meetings during this period, at each of which they adopted a "program of policies" which were then disseminated in pamphlet form to stir public opinion. They also gave radio addresses, including two series of weekly addresses aired by the National Broadcasting Company, one in 1931 and the other in 1933-1934. They also held special meetings with "keynote" addresses.
In 1934, under the coordination of national chairman Raymond Pitcairn, the Sentinels conducted a large-scale campaign against a proposed tax law that would have required publication of personal financial data, including an individual’s gross income. They distributed hundreds of thousands of protest stickers and form letters urging people to demand that Congress repeal what they described as an “outrageous invasion of privacy.” The protest was successful: after receiving thousands of letters and telegrams opposing the legislation, Congress backed down.
Read more about this topic: Sentinels Of The Republic
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