1. Amos Alfred Fries was a general in the United States Army and 1898 graduate of the United States Military Academy.
19 Facts About Amos Fries
1. 2.
Amos Fries eventually became an important commander in World War I After he retired from the Army in 1929, Fries wrote two anti-communist books.
3.
Amos Fries died in 1963 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
4.
Amos Alfred Fries was born March 17,1873, in Viroqua, Wisconsin.
5.
Amos Fries's family moved to Missouri after he was born and then moved to Oregon.
6.
Amos Fries earned an appointment to the United States Military Academy and graduated there in 1898.
7.
Amos 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.
8.
The Gas Service Section was mostly constituted by the 1st Gas Regiment and Amos Fries commanded the section.
9.
Amos Fries became the chief of the Overseas Division of the Chemical Warfare Service 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.
10.
Amos Fries served at that post until he retired from the Army in 1929.
11.
Amos Fries viewed calls for chemical disarmament as a Communist plot.
12.
Amos Fries accused the National Council for Prevention of War of being a Communist front.
13.
Amos Fries leveled similar accusations at Florence Watkins, the executive secretary of the National Congress of Parent Teacher Associations.
14.
The pressure generated by Amos Fries' accusations led to the National Congress of Parent Teacher Associations withdrawing its membership in the NCPW.
15.
In 1923 Amos Fries' office distributed a "spider chart" to "patriotic groups" across the United States.
16.
Later in his life, Amos Fries lobbied for Congress to ban the "teaching or advocating" communism in public schools.
17.
In 1935, he 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.
18.
Amos Fries was a supporter of both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy 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.
19.
Amos Fries died at the age of 90 on December 30,1963, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.