? [upbeat music] ?
(cow mooing)
(crickets chirping)
(projector whirring and clicking)
- [Narrator] This is an aerial film
taken of the University of Lawsonomy
students reunion in Wisconsin.
The fifty state flags were placed along the west edge
of the university property.
The stars and stripes were carried by Merle Hayden.
Then on Saturday evening the rain came down in torrents.
But the law of maneuverability was with us
and the sun dawned bright and warm
drying out the flags and the ground.
It was a beautiful morning.
? Here we are, here we are, here we are again ?
? Students of Lawsonomy ?
? Congregating happily ?
? After a while we go home ?
? Then we start to pack ?
? For a journey that will bring us right straight back ?
? So hello everybody ?
? Glad that you are here ?
? Hello everybody ?
? You've come from far and near ?
? Oh hello everybody ?
? We think that you are grand ?
? Hello everybody let me shake your hand ?
- That sign, that was big advertising.
It helped make Lawsonomy a common word almost.
Course it won't get in the dictionary for a long time, but.
When I was here, people would come in here and,
I've gone by that sign a million times.
They finally give up and had to stop.
- [Interviewer] How many people would just stop by
once they saw the sign?
- You mean going by the farm?
- Yeah, did you get people-- - Not many.
Curiosity's gone.
(light instrumental music)
Lawsonomy is a whole new philosophy of thought.
It deals with the social system, the money system,
natural law, health, all interwoven
into the operation of the human race.
I just happened to be young enough to get in
right in the beginning and get an understanding of it.
I'm the last surviving crusader from the '30s
that's still promoting Lawsonomy principles.
I never worked for money for myself, see.
I gave my entire life to the organization.
I don't know why but I save everything.
- I knew Merle way way back, 1939.
We get along now just about the same as we did
when I was 14
and he must have been 15.
- See, nothing else here.
- Millions of people grabbed on to this Lawsonomy
and I don't know a lot about what it was all about
in the first place other than that a lot of people were
involved in some political action
back in the '30s
when everybody lost their jobs
and didn't have food enough to feed their families.
So people were grabbing for something.
He says that he took an oath to be part of it
the rest of his life.
I don't say it's wrong, but I don't understand it.
When he was 18 he took off.
Went where he could do more in the organization.
Want me to tell you?
- [Merle] I have to hook up something--
- I ask him, where are you going
and when are you coming back?
And he said, I don't know.
(light playful music)
- [Merle] One of the last times I drove
Alfred Lawson some place and I don't remember where it was,
he says it was my one hope that great men
will spring up in the future and take hold of this work.
That they will be willing to devote their lives
in an endeavor to put the whole human race
up on a footing of equality.
But I worked with Lawson right under him, see.
That's how I really got to know him,
and to know his thinking.
Lawson had international acclaim in five separate fields.
In aircraft he was the lead educator worldwide
for seven years.
Lawson built the first airliner
and he put the word aircraft into the dictionary.
He laid the foundation of the industry.
He could have been a multi-millionaire,
he could have been a billionaire
before they started talking about it.
But when the Depression hit in '29
he renounced ownership of wealth for himself
to spend the rest of his life coaching the people
on how to save their country and build a better human race.
- [Lawson] Roughly speaking, 99% of the human race
have very little or no accumulated wealth.
The 1% control the great bulk of it.
There is a mighty good reason for this state of affairs.
The American people have been lulled
into a deep sleep by the financiers.
It is my duty to wake them up.
- [Merle] He could see the injustice and the corruption
of the system and he started organizing.
And he had over 15 million people coast to coast
marching against the financial system.
And yet in all the history books try and find his name even.
It isn't even there, see.
Disappeared.
Will Lawsonomy principles ever take over the world?
I don't know.
But I go to Oshkosh and reach as many people as I can
with what I've got.
(brassy martial music)
(airplane engines buzzing)
Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
They come from 'round the world.
So people we could never meet otherwise we meet here.
And it's the best place in the world
for us to introduce Lawson's aircraft works to people.
All of Lawson's activities, Lawsonomy.
- It's really awesome the first time
I think anybody comes up here.
Oh this is just huge, you can't believe
how many trailers you see,
how many motor homes you see, and people.
Now, where is that guy?
Is it a big one?
I think it was 2002 the first time I came up here.
Merle's been coming up for 30 years, something like that.
He can probably tell you.
- How far should he go on that end?
- That's enough.
No no, that's enough.
- You sure? - Yep.
- [Man] All right.
- That's it.
- I think a wife would get kind of tired
of spending their vacation every year
up here at the airshow.
I'd rather go to a lake someplace and
be peaceful and quiet.
This is certainly not peaceful.
I think that this sort of a thing, this show, is too much.
- [Merle] Well this is my main regimen.
I do a few of these every morning.
- Health wise, he's in good condition.
But, you know, everybody says well he's almost 90, you know,
you can only live so long.
He figures he's got about 20 more years of this.
And he said, oh yeah, I got this guy
and that one that's gonna help.
And I know that he's interested in meeting young people
and trying to get them interested in it.
I was young once and he couldn't get me interested in it,
in the whole deal.
- [Merle] Let's pull it back.
Up until 1990
we had enough of the old timers that were carrying the load.
Everybody that I've got helping me now
was through the airshow.
Like Jim.
- Forward or backward, does it matter?
- [Merle] As long as you can do it.
- I first met Merle sometime in the early '80s.
And I came here to Oshkosh because I have an interest
in pre-World War I aviation.
So in the distance I see a booth
with three giant models of biplanes hanging over it.
And I told myself, whatever that is, it's for me.
And that's how I met Merle.
I learned about Lawson.
And then I went home.
And this was before the internet
and I couldn't find anything out about Lawsonomy.
- Did he finish this one?
- [Merle] He finished it, yeah.
- [Man] Did he fly it?
- [Merle] It crashed.
It wouldn't take off, it didn't get altitude.
- So that airplane never flew?
- That one didn't. - This one flew.
- So why are you here?
- Educating people.
What you interested in?
Aircraft? - Yes.
- Health? - Health, yes.
- Economics? - Yes.
- We got it all.
- [Man] What is Lawsonomy?
- [Merle] Well there's three volumes over there'll
tell you about it.
- [Man] Is it a religion, or what is it?
- Philosophy of life, physical, mental, moral.
- [Man] Oh is that what it is?
So is it a religion then?
- Well it's a, if you believe in God
I guess you got a religion, if you don't, you don't.
- [Man] Yeah, okay.
- Well here's the story as best I can piece it together.
Lawson was a professional major league baseball player,
pioneer aviator,
and then later he starts his own religion.
That's an interesting story.
My question is why is not everyone else
fascinated with that?
Your analysis of the man, and his importance.
- Lawson tried so much in so many different fields.
Made apparent strides forward
and then faltered.
It makes a wonderful story, in my view.
It was awfully hard to write a chapter
on Lawson's childhood.
I cannot find any other material except his play,
Childhood Days of Alfred Lawson.
In there he makes it pretty plain that he had
very pronounced intellectual interests.
Keep in mind that he never got past the sixth grade
but Lawson was always looking for the opportunity
for himself to cash in on new developments
and baseball was a boom industry in the 1890s.
- [Jim] He played for the Boston Beaneaters
of the National League
and also for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys.
But then he went back to managing and running minor leagues
and introduced baseball to South Africa and Australia.
He may have been the first person
to put numbers on baseball uniforms.
- [Dr. Henry] Lawson was always looking for a first,
first this, first that.
That was certainly true in baseball and in aviation.
He was among the very first in aviation.
- [Jim] In 1908 the Wright brothers
flew for the first time publicly.
And aviation fever hit the country.
And so Lawson saw the opportunity to start Fly magazine,
the first popular aviation magazine in the world.
And that started his aviation career.
- [Dr. Henry] When he left Fly magazine
he decided the time had come to found a commercial airline
before anyone else would ever have thought
that airplanes could someday be a major carrier of people.
He wanted to be the guy that would bring that off.
If you walked onto it today,
you would say it looks exactly the way
the current airliners look.
That is, a long corridor, seats on both sides,
and the pilot's area up front.
That plane was produced in four or five month's time
and which was flown on its maiden voyage
from Milwaukee to New York and back.
And Lawson was the hero of the moment in 1919.
- [Narrator] Wherever there was business enough
the gypsy flyer settled down.
He bought a bigger plane, rented a larger cow pasture,
and often gave free rides, especially to the ladies.
- They were gonna make Milwaukee the Detroit
of the aviation industry.
The trouble was, instead of setting out to make more planes
like the one he had just made,
he wanted to make a bigger one.
He cannibalized his first plane
in order to make the second plane,
which doesn't really put you very far ahead.
And secondly it called for a lot of redesign.
It threw him way behind schedule.
Finally his investor says, get that plane in the air.
So he flew.
The plane did take off, but it didn't get high enough
and caught a tree, and that brought it down.
And his investor said, that's it, no more.
That was the end of the real prospect Lawson had
to do something.
When you look back on that though,
that was a major turning point in Lawson's life.
And it also gave him the chance to pursue
what he always claimed he wanted to do
and that is carry his studies into the field of economics.
- [Jim] So according to Lawson they came to him
and offered him money to become a power broker
in the financial world and he didn't want it.
It was his rejection of them
which caused them to reject him.
- See, he joined the Aero Club in 1908.
It was a millionaire sport (mumbles).
So he picked up firsthand how they operated
this whole financial system, see.
So when the big depression hit
he wrote a treatise called Direct Credits for Everybody.
- Called what?
Direct what for everybody?
Oh, Direct Credits for Everybody.
So he also involved in basically economic things.
- Oh yeah.
That's what wiped his name out of existence.
- What do you mean?
- [Merle] They don't care about aircraft,
they don't care about Lawsonomy, but this they're afraid of.
Now the little 60-some page book,
I claim is still the broadest education
in the fewest words of any other book ever written.
Because it doesn't deal just with money.
And everybody could see that something was wrong
in the Depression but nobody understood why.
And by just opening a book there was the answer.
I can remember '29 and my dad had built his own home.
He lost the home to the banks.
Well I was 13 when he got the direct credits book.
We had a paper route and pulled into this farmer's yard
and hey, here's something you ought to be interested in.
It's a program that proposes justice for everybody
that harms nobody.
And if he'd a been a cat or a horse or something
his ears popped right up.
His whole attitude changed.
He says, well that's interesting, what you got?
He started working in the organization right away.
So by the time I was a senior, my dad took seven of us
to Columbus and that's where I first heard Lawson.
- [Lawson] Man has done many queer things heretofore,
but none quite so stupid as chaining himself
to this suicidal orgy of finance.
I am ready and willing to show the people
every trick the financiers and their touts practice on them.
Join the Direct Credit Society and help stop the thief now,
before it's too late.
? Direct credits is the answer ?
? Justice for humanity ?
? Direct credit's still the answer ?
? For all the world and more ?
? As for greed they say ?
? That interest must stay ?
? As their philosophy ?
? Direct credits is still the answer ?
? Always was and always will be ?
- [Merle] That's what really locked me into Lawsonomy
because it was clear in my mind that if we didn't
do something about it we'd be a slave nation.
Soon as I got out of school I decided
I'd take a little bike trip.
Well I made it from Toledo to Omaha in seven days,
and just before I crossed the river well I run across
a Direct Credits bureau out there.
The leader said that's a lot of biking
why don't you stay at the bureau for a while.
And that was the start of my full time life in Lawsonomy.
- When he first went in, he just swallowed it all.
I shouldn't say it that way, that sounds bad.
He took it all in.
I knew that he was gonna be leaving.
My sister and I shared a bed and I was keeping her awake
because I was upset and I was crying and my dad come,
knocked on the door and he said,
if you're gonna lay there and cry all night,
you can go upstairs.
And so I stayed by that window and
when I saw the bike go by I went back to bed
and cried some more.
I walked every day to get our mail
to see if he wrote me a letter.
And he never did.
He never did.
But I can't
think about that, you know, that's been over 60 years ago.
I just can't imagine
that it's that long.
- [Merle] And she didn't know why I left even.
She thought it was another girl, see.
What else can you say?
She really hurt.
- This business of sitting by a trailer
all day every day gets tiresome.
When I was able to go over to the show and walk around
it was fun, it didn't seem like a job.
I might not come back to another airshow,
and he don't like to hear that.
In his life, he never had to really answer to anybody
for where he was going or what he was doing.
He used to just take off and go.
Maybe he'll come without me or maybe I'll...
I would miss him if he was up here for 10 days.
10 days seems like an awful long time to be apart
when we have been apart for 62 years.
10 days is too long anymore.
- [Merle] We get enough support, I will be back.
If I get my leg straightened out,
if she gets feeling better.
Time alone will tell.
31 years.
- That's almost as old as I am.
I think to be honest about the whole thing,
when you're almost 90 years old that's the time
to throw in the sponge and enjoy something else.
My family, they all say, why isn't he staying?
Well I don't know.
- Well I wouldn't come here if you weren't here.
- You wouldn't? - No, no.
- I made an agreement with him
that I would stay there six months
and he'd stay here six months.
That I'm willing to do that
to be with him because I think he was my first love.
- [Merle] 1935, we moved third house down from Betty.
- We sort of walked to the bus together.
Sometimes he'd carry my books but he never would carry them
when the bus was in sight.
That was quite a thing for somebody to carry your books.
That was like an engagement.
I would try to help him with Latin and that wasn't my thing.
Oh, he taught me how to say I love you.
That was amo te, is that right?
- Pretty close.
- It was a one sided love affair,
I was in love and he wasn't.
But every time he came around
I would try to get closer to him, and closer.
That was my job, to get closer.
And he said one day that he was gonna ride his bike out
through the west and he got into the Direct Credits.
- Activities. - Organization there
and I never saw you after that.
Does that show on the camera?
- [Merle] Yeah.
- [Betty] But I got another boyfriend.
Why should I sit around and wait for him?
- [Merle] What about the picture on your school book?
- [Betty] Is your yearbook down here?
- [Merle] Oh, golly.
- See where I cut it out.
I carried his picture in my wallet.
- [Merle] Cut a little, out of the high school album.
- I can't understand why you can't find where
there's a hole in the book.
Here, here we are.
1937, sophomore.
- Oh that's where you cut it out.
- I carried this picture for years.
I carried it in my wallet even after I was married,
which was probably the wrong thing to do, but I did it.
My first marriage, he was a good guy, but he drank.
And all alcoholics are good guys but they drink.
He found it and he said why are you still
carrying this guy's picture around?
So I hid it underneath
my underwear in my drawer.
From that time, the picture was here and there
and I didn't know where it was.
See you can stick my finger through it.
I should be on this page some place.
I thought you were on the same page?
- [Merle] Nope, this is the one from our graduation.
She's killing me.
- She's killing me (laughs).
Ah, golly.
I was killing you, all right.
There were many times when I could have killed you.
But I guess there was still a spark there.
When I heard his voice on the telephone it was like
it's all starting over again.
I was like a 16 year old, and I was 80.
I was glad to welcome him back.
But I've ruined a lot of it.
I've been in and out of the hospital,
and I don't know how good I would get along
if he went up there and left me down here.
You, would you get along all right
if you went up there and I stayed down here?
- [Merle] Well I've got enough to do that I'd get along
as far as that goes.
But you're the partial decision now.
- I think we'll have nice weather all summer here.
- [Merle] I know, I told you I'm down here for her,
not the whether.
- [Announcer] Attention AirTran Airways passengers
arriving from Fort Meyers, your bags are being offloaded
on carousel number four, once again, pass--
- [Announcer] AirTran Airway passengers arriving
on flight 655 from Orlando, your bags have been moved
to carousel number five.
- [Merle] You gotta figure out how to do this.
- [Betty] What do you want me to do?
- [Merle] Suppose you can hold that?
- Sure, I can move it along.
- [Merle] No, no.
- I'm not gonna use this wheelchair.
Oh yeah, I'm gonna use this one.
- We'll be here all summer and she's gonna do some therapy
for about a month, so
in the meantime I'll do as much organizing as I can.
- [Interviewer] What's the word on Oshkosh?
- Not gonna make it?
- You're not figuring on going to Oshkosh?
Huh, that's the first I heard of this.
- We didn't have the money.
You knew that. - Oh.
I think it's good.
The last time we talked to you, he hadn't made up his mind.
Sounds like he's made up his mind this time.
That he's not going.
- [Merle] Can't go.
- And it's all right with me.
I think it'll affect him that he's not going.
When it comes May, June, or July
he'll probably want to go to the airshow.
But I think that my health is not as good
as he thinks it is.
(tinny instrumental music)
- Come on.
My castle.
I moved out to the farm in November of '57
and spent the rest of our life out here.
I crammed in here 100 years of records
and I'm trying to sort 'em.
They're not really organized, I just kept piling
and trying to get them into a collection.
Huh.
That's a collection of reports that have been made
to the FBI about the Direct Credit Society.
A sheriff from Port Huron, Michigan.
"Would also like to ask for information whether or not
"your department has ever heard or contact
"with the Direct Credit Society.
"No one else seems to know anything about the society."
We got opposition, that's for sure.
We've been called everything under the sun
and communists, socialists, radicals.
Anything anybody could concoct in their mind to call us
because they didn't know anything about it.
- [Lawson] The Direct Credit Society
stands to abolish interest and eliminate taxes.
The government will issue new money
and loan it to the people without interest.
If interest is not abolished soon there will not be
a manufacturer in America who will own his own factory,
a farmer who will own his own farm.
There is but one loophole of escape,
direct credit for everybody.
? Sing sing ?
? Direct Credit song ?
? Let everyone know ?
? We're winning ?
- [Merle] Well, Direct Credits, one of its main points
is to abolish interest on the use of money.
The other problem is to replace the private control of money
and put it into the hands of the government
and according to the Constitution.
But it's the selfishness of the people actually
that they uphold this system
because they think they can get something out of it.
Whereas they lose everything instead of gaining.
- Interest is fundamentally wrong, Lawson claimed.
And that was proved in the Great Depression.
It was caused by financiers,
and Lawson identified them as the target.
And he soon had many members.
You can imagine that any sort of economic panacea
in the Depression is likely to get some attention.
(percussive martial music)
- People flocked to Lawson and he started
his Benefactor paper in Detroit.
And he built that to the largest circulation in the world
in less than seven years.
I personally put out over 350,000 of them.
Door to door.
I used to dread going up to a door for fear of somebody
come out and holler at me and get that out of here.
One of his rules was we don't argue with anybody.
We were to study it and learn what we could learn
and once we understood it
then we'd offer it to other people.
If they do not accept it that's their loss.
I started collecting these many many years ago.
Good lord.
I didn't realize I had that many of them.
Unless you know these things you are not educated.
- Many of his ideas were very similar
to those that Father Coughlin,
who was also in Detroit at that very same time.
So they were beating the bushes
looking for the same customers locally.
Of course Coughlin had the advantage
'cause he was using the radio to get his message out.
Lawson refused to use the radio
because it was controlled by the financiers.
- [Announcer] Father Charles Edward Coughlin today
is far more than just a valuable voice in the radio.
- I dared you and challenged you to organize
so that the people, if not the President,
would drive the money changers
from the temple and you did it.
- The Direct Credit's advocate if they wished
could make a strong case
that Coughlin swiped ideas from Lawson.
But too often Coughlin let it be thought
that you see the financiers were Jewish.
I've searched Lawson's writings and his speeches
with that very question in mind.
It may be some of his followers
were translating in their own minds, Jewish.
But if they were they had Coughlin right on the scene,
they could have followed him instead of Lawson.
- [Merle] He had no complaint against people,
it was the whole system.
Fact is, a guy started talking against the Jews.
And Lawson stopped him, he said wait a minute,
he says now, this organization is for the citizens
of the United States, for the people.
It's for everybody.
- I went to one meeting.
My dad and mother allowed me to go to one meeting.
And I couldn't tell you now what they talked about.
One night, after Merle and I had been sitting
on the front porch for two hours, my dad said,
you know, you better quit hanging around with him
because he's nothing but trouble.
Well see, my dad was seeing the political end of it.
But Merle was a prince to me.
You know, I didn't care what he did.
- Be tight, like that.
- [Interviewer] What's gonna happen
to all this stuff, Merle?
- [Merle] That's what I want to know.
The financiers have done everything to submerge Lawson
or anything in connection with him.
The only place it appears now
is in connection with aircraft.
Not with economics or direct credit or anything else.
If you mentioned Lawsonomy today, they'd look at you weird.
Who, what's that?
The problem with this whole financial system is that
the museums can sell something.
They have to use the money,
but they don't have to keep it, see?
That's the problem.
How do you know it's going to be safe?
This is a record of an era
that there'd been none like it in history.
I'm trying to preserve it for future generations
if the human race don't blow the Earth up beforehand.
(organ music)
- [Merle] That's enough.
- [Interviewer] What was that one called?
- The Exercise March.
Do you have this?
- [Interviewer] Yes, I do.
- Well this is all songs that was written
by members of our organization.
- Stuff is what I call it.
Stuff.
The things that he cherishes the most I think are in Racine.
He wants to get rid of all that stuff
but he doesn't really want to.
- [Merle] Well I want to preserve it,
I don't want to get rid of it.
- A lot of it is just junk,
but there's interesting history there
that could very easily be lost.
The real holy grail would be the audio recordings
that Lawson made in 1931 or '32.
But Merle says he doesn't have it and I tend to believe him.
He also didn't realize he had Direct Credits for Everybody
in braille, and it's in two huge volumes
and he didn't know he had it, so.
I hope that it ends up with someone who knows what it is.
I hope that is just doesn't get bulldozed into a landfill.
But it will be a huge research project
to try and reassemble it.
- I'm working on, ahk, I didn't want to do that.
When I'm writing these letters,
I'm trying to support everybody I can
with the opportunity that Lawsonomy gives them
to better the human race.
They're all new people that I've met up at Oshkosh.
It's just a matter of time and composition, that's all.
'Course I went into debt to do it.
- [Interviewer] How much money a month
do you spend on mailing?
- I never calculated it.
I just do it.
But I'm a little bit like Lawson,
money is not the purpose of my efforts.
You fold 'em up,
stick 'em in the envelopes.
Betty seals them, puts the stamps on them.
- It's a combination, we do it together.
Would you get mine?
- Yeah, it's at home. - All right.
- [Merle] She's actually afraid to be alone.
And then when I left in '39
why that stayed with her all her life, you see.
And now she's afraid that I won't come back.
So that's one we have to work out.
With me, it's like being on a racetrack.
You don't win the race until you cross the finish line.
So I hope to cross the finish line running.
- Our speaker tonight is Merle Hayden.
He knew Alfred Lawson.
He's also been connected with the University of Lawsonomy.
I really found out
in preparing for this particular meeting
what a fascinating guy Merle is.
- I'll guarantee just one thing, it's gonna be different.
This was our first base at Port Moreseby in New Guinea.
That's the P-51 fighter plane.
Worked in armament.
When I went in the service I decide that I go and do
what I had to do, but they could have the rest of it.
It isn't that you like war,
you want to fight or anything, you have to.
When I was overseas I was writing to I think
40-some people in the organization trying to inspire them
to keep up the organization work
when it should have been the other way around.
- Lawson was convinced that America ought to be in that war
but it was at odds with his own view of war
and whether the financiers caused war.
The members in my observation are highly patriotic
and yet from their own doctrine it follows
that they were bamboozled into this by the financiers.
The financiers you see had created those wars.
I don't think it really mattered to Lawson though
because I believe he was beginning to change his focus
away from economics.
- [Merle] With the end of the war,
Direct Credits lost its momentum, the numbers had dropped.
People got money, they got jobs,
went back to their routine living.
Forgot about freedom and all of that.
That was the loss of the big following.
The people that stayed were the ones
that were Lawsonomy students.
And that was the small part of the 12, 15 million followers
that he had in the '30s.
- Here he was in the late '30s, he had a large following
of people who were really committed to Direct Credits
doctrine and he was leading them in new directions.
He was developing his philosophy into a coordinated,
coherent whole that he called Lawsonomy.
It was gonna have all his scientific, philosophical,
economic views, everything was in there.
Actually what Lawson did was to bring his doctrine
of Lawsonomy back to where it was in his original book,
the novel Born Again from 1904.
It's a terrible book.
Full of improbable things.
- He put his thinking of Lawsonomy into the story.
But he introduced controlling the Earth by sun power,
controlling the electrical field with the Earth,
natural law, mental telepathy, health,
many things like that.
He introduced such outlandish things
that if he had put them out as facts
people wouldn't be interested in.
- [Dr. Henry] All the things that he had enunciated
in Born Again about the next wave of humanity,
the improvement of the human species
would come true by virtue of aviation.
Lawson thought there would be people living in the air.
They wouldn't come down to Earth.
So we'd in a sense have a new, superior race of humans
living in the sky.
- [Lawson] Man must now prepare for another step forward
in his continuous march
towards a higher state of intelligence.
Man's growth begins with exercise,
builds up with nourishment, and recuperates with rest.
The men and women of the future who study and practice
pure Lawsonomy principles will evolve into giants
physically, mentally, and morally.
- [Dr. Henry] Lawson was always concerned about his health
and so he re-conceptualized all of physical activity
in terms of suction and pressure.
And he developed lots of rules for daily living.
Rules about how one should sleep in the nude,
change the bed sheets every day.
Two cold baths every day.
The emphasis on vegetarianism, on living a clean life.
Bringing about a dramatic change in the human condition.
- [Merle] I have to think about this.
- Lawson had different philosophies.
Nutrition was one.
When we first got back together
I knew that he didn't,
that he never ate much cooked food.
And to this day, he likes raw food.
Probably wouldn't hurt me to do that.
I probably would lose a little weight
if I'd stick to raw foods.
- The more natural foods you put into your body
the better the mental organisms and menorgs can
and build a better formation.
The thinking creates within man,
he called them mental organisms.
These thinking creatures within us are actually living
as much as we are in the greater sphere.
- The mental organisms, called the menorgs,
are matched by the disorgs, the disorganizers.
They're also submicroscopic.
You can find also in current doctrines
this notion of little entities that can cause trouble.
Scientology for instance has the concept of the theta beings
and they're just like the disorgs.
They cause all kinds of problems
and the way to deal with them of course
is through dianetics or Scientology.
Sounds rather Lawsonian to me in a way.
- People talk about maneuverability,
which is essentially karma.
And he believes it's possible to convey thoughts
from one person to another without speaking.
They will call that telementy but I don't recall anyone
claiming to be able to
convey a specific message to someone else.
It may have happened.
- All of this maneuverability
and penetrability and all those terms
that he talks about,
they're way out as far as I'm concerned, I don't
really understand it all.
I don't have the same mentality that he does.
? Now today I was touched by Lawsonomy ?
? Learning about (singer obscured by poor audio quality) ?
? The law of maneuverability ?
? As it applies to you and to me ?
? These laws you must obey each day ?
? Do right, that's the only way ?
? Do what is right ?
? Each day and night ?
? In Lawsonomy ?
- [Interviewer] Let's get some quick definitions
of Lawsonian words and phrases, like zig-zag-and-swirl.
- You can put that on.
- [Interviewer] I can, I can have just a narrator read it.
- Yeah. - It would be more
entertaining and more interesting
to hear someone who really knows.
- Boy, I haven't given that definition for a couple hours.
Zig-zag-and-swirl, the method of movement throughout space.
All matter moves in a multiple direction simultaneously,
pulled and pushed by suction and pressure
in currents of differing density,
and that's all I can remember of it.
Eternally.
- When talking about any of Lawson's teachings
he would prefer to just recite.
Because then he can't get it wrong and he doesn't embellish.
And he's just giving you what Lawson said.
Which is what Lawson wanted.
- [Dr. Henry] The goal was to memorize those books.
If you memorized and recited over and over
and over again for 30 years you would become a new person,
a member of the new species.
- [Merle] Well it was all home study
and finally he established the title of Knowlegian,
which was a 30 year course for a teacher of Lawsonomy.
And I don't remember how many degrees were issued.
I lost track of that.
- [Jim] In 1943 the organization bought
a defunct baptist university in Des Moines, Iowa.
So that began the University of Lawsonomy.
At first the people of Des Moines
were very happy that someone was coming in
and taking over this derelict property.
But they had grown so accustomed to nothing being there
that they used it as a short cut across town
or a lover's lane and so people moving in
and actually fencing it off
got a lot of people very upset.
The fence was a big deal.
It looked like it was a metal fence but it was just wooden.
The papers always referred to it as an iron fence
and that probably didn't help either.
- And so the story started going around
how people were in there and they were inmates
unable to get out.
There were a number of sensational episodes
involving children who were there.
A student at the University of Lawsonomy
could be of any age.
And some of those kids were there with their parents
and some of the kids were sent there by their parents.
And it looked like in some cases
they were being banished there.
You know, get rid of troublesome kids.
Send them off to the University of Lawsonomy.
And the kids of course were expected to do all the work
that everyone had to do there.
So it looked like they were violating the child labor laws.
The university became a target.
And I think it had to do with the inability of the outsiders
to understand what was going on there.
I think they were probably sitting in there
just utterly perplexed why the outer world
was hating them so much.
They professed love,
concern for the outer world.
All they wanted to do is be left alone and do their thing
and someday the world would benefit
by virtue of their activities.
(suspenseful music)
- [Merle] The common person reacts
to what they read in the newspapers.
The common person today is not a thinking machine.
They'd brand you right away.
- Des Moines was always looking for reasons to not like
the University of Lawsonomy.
Lawson, without trying to do so,
was giving them ammunition for that.
Lawson one day announced that he had been married
for about a year and had a child.
Lawson had always written denunciations of marriage,
and especially as it applied to him.
There was a big hullabaloo because I think
many of his followers thought, well he's the leader
of this organization, he's married to the organization.
I think Lawson was thinking in terms of
as he said, posterity.
Letting his genes pass on.
His good character, all his fine features
that he had acquired in his lifetime
would be passed on genetically.
(Lawsonian students singing)
- He had, I don't know 20 girls working there in the office.
But apparently he had watched Eleanor for a long time
and putting some of this together afterwards,
why there was some, a lot of them were jilted over the deal,
they didn't get him, and so forth, you know.
The whole thing just apparently exploded.
It was an interaction of many forces
that broke the thing up.
Probably the last break was when
he formally announced Lawsonian religion.
There was nothing basically changed
in his principles at all.
He merely adapted the principles into a religion.
The only change was formalizing it and calling it such.
? Lawson ?
? Lawson he came to us in strife ?
? Lawson, Lawson ?
? Lawsonomy his life ?
? With his strict knowledge ?
? He came to set them free ?
? Lawson ?
? He gave unselfishly ?
? He's the greatest man ?
- There were people worshipers, no doubt about it.
There were people that worshiped Lawson.
I never looked up to him as God.
The thought never entered my head.
I knew he was the leader, I knew was an advanced seeker
so I never argued with him.
Didn't know enough to argue with him, see.
But those who had any ax to grind,
why they decided that was the end.
If Lawson had stuck to economics he'd have done all right.
But when he stepped into spirituality
he was outstepping his bounds.
- It seems to me that by the time they were in Des Moines
all the independent people had either left
or he threw them out.
So he was left with people who slavishly were loyal to him.
- Did they separate themselves from society, they did.
Did they have some unorthodox beliefs, yes.
There are instances where Lawson would send
the father of a family to a bureau in one state
and the mother to a bureau in another state.
And the kids would live with their grandparents.
He had members of the organization change their names.
And those are things, you know,
if you are changing your identity, what you are called
because someone asks you to,
that's another aspect of
a charismatic leader of a religion.
So I think most people who analyze and study cults
would refer to it as a cult.
But every religion that gets started
starts as a smaller group and eventually grows.
This one, so far has not.
But there's more to it than just a religion.
He may have been looking for a tax break.
The university when it started received a tax exempt status
as a university, which they were.
Some point after the Second World War
the University of that Lawsonomy bought a bunch
of machine tools as war surplus at a big discount.
Everything was fine for a while
but then the government decided they didn't like
how that machine tool business happened,
so they came in and they
revoked their status as a university,
which took away their tax exempt status.
And they didn't just revoke it
but they revoked it retroactive to 1943,
so that's a decade of back taxes that they suddenly owed.
- When the government was bringing those cases
against the university out there in Des Moines,
brought this $360,000 lawsuit against us
for back taxes when we were tax exempt,
Lawson made me assistant secretary for the university.
Took me over a year just to get down
so I could understand the tax return.
Picking up scraps of paper and cash receipts,
trying to set up a bookkeeping system.
That was the hectic period of my life
'cause I got stuck with the whole job there
for a while I was even doing cooking.
He used to come out downstairs in the kitchen
and eat with the rest of us.
Apparently the publicity on the court case
had picked up momentum.
He said, well they can take everything we've got
but if we still have our principles,
we're still ahead of the game.
He was trying to build us up for whatever was to come.
- [Dr. Henry] In 1954 Lawson finally threw in the towel
and sold the university, and most of the profit that he got
had to be used to settle the tax claims.
So the whole program came crashing down.
(somber instrumental music)
- [Merle] Had to grin and bear it and keep going
that's all there was to it.
Well he says, my work's done, he says,
I'm just living for my officers now.
So he knew that he wasn't here for much longer.
- [Woman] This first part was filmed on November 5th, 1954
just three weeks before Alfred Lawson's passing.
How thankful we are to be privileged
to have this short film preserved for posterity.
There was a closeness of spirit, a sense of union.
He would start a colony where his beloved followers
could live together harmoniously.
Even though we could not converse with him
on his high level, still we felt
that the flood of lovability we poured out to him
made up in a small way for our lack of advancement.
When the last call came from our beloved commander,
his last words had been, "Now I can go to sleep."
As if all his cares had been forgotten.
On November 29th, 1954,
five men, Edwin Knutson, William Bertrand, E.L. Bates,
Egerton Bolton, and Merle Hayden
met on this sad mission in San Antonio, Texas.
- And finding out that I'd seen him two days before
and now he was gone, it just felt like the bottom dropped.
That's right after the fire was started.
- Pegh.
- Eh.
- [Interviewer] So did you feel like you missed out
on a lot of this, Betty?
- I don't know.
I don't know if I would have...
- [Merle] She'd a been with us if she'd a gotten in early.
- Yeah, but I didn't get into it.
My dad wouldn't let me.
- This was Margie before we were married.
In fact, 10 years before.
She'd come in in '32, one of the very earliest members.
The first children's classes that Lawson had
was held in her parent's home.
So she grew up with Lawson right from the beginning.
I met her in '49.
After one of the meetings, people were leaving
and I can still remember her mother talking to me,
saying that Margie had just come through a terrible divorce.
And I think the comment I made, oh you poor girl.
Something like that.
But that was my introduction to her.
I'd take the young people out to the park
and we'd study in Lawson's books.
And she became a part of the group.
Got involved in everything.
- When I was a young girl, I wanted to be a doctor.
I was always telling people
what to do to help them, you know.
Of course when the Depression came my dad said to me,
you're going to have to change your course.
I won't be able to put you through college,
and well I didn't think about working
and putting myself through.
So that's when I switched over to secretarial work.
And I became a secretary.
But I never got over wanted to help people
and telling them what to do to help themselves
and I'm still trying to help people.
But I always thank my spiritual advisor for everything.
And Lawson didn't want us to worship him,
he wanted our love and respect.
And that's what we gave him.
- [Jim] Now I know that Lawson gave you some mixed signals
about whether he wanted you to get married or not.
- Oh, yes.
This one time he says to me,
don't take my good man away from me.
And I thought, oh no, when I was just about ready
to give up everything and marry Merle.
Two months later, it might have been a month later,
and we were throwing the ball.
He says, you know if you want that man,
I thought what, if I want him?
I sure do.
Don't wear those pants like the women wear
in the war factories.
He wanted me to dress like a woman.
So I thanked him.
So he did sanction that I could marry Merle.
To think first he told me not to and then told me I could.
But it was good, 'cause it give me,
you know made me think serious.
- [Merle] Had Lawson lived, I probably wouldn't
have gotten married because I'd been too
totally involved in the movement.
Margie and I just sort of molded together,
I guess you could say it.
We got married in April of '61.
And it was a team effort from then on.
- I saw Merle needed help, you know 'cause Merle
didn't have any money.
Well I quite my job.
I would have had a wonderful pension if I'd a stuck with it.
I got quite a bit of money.
So I said to Merle, let's do something with that money.
Put it in the bank and it's gone.
So we bought the organ and we bought a car, a trailer,
so that way the money wasn't just thrown away.
I've never regretted it.
I never regret giving up my job.
I was always trying to do something for the organization.
You know, when you're working for somebody else
they tell you what to do.
Here people come to us.
- Lawson, he was gone.
And they had lost the university and the money
they got from it was pretty well eaten up in back taxes.
So what do they do next?
The Lawsonomists owned a farm in Sturtevant, Wisconsin.
And that's where they ended up and continued to do
pretty much what they had done at the Des Moines university.
They had a few people living there,
and they were going through the motions
of learning Lawsonomy.
And they would have big get togethers.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(solemn instrumental music)
One of the problems for the Lawsonomy movement
is that successful movements, they must have a leader.
It isn't just ideas that hold people together,
it's often a charismatic type of leader.
Lawson was that.
And he could get his followers to do anything.
But when he's gone,
there was no provision for any succession.
There was some provision a board would take over.
But a board of people who lacked any sense
of independent authority, any leadership skills.
They were incapable of acting alone.
They needed someone like Lawson there to guide them.
- [Jim] Merle started taking the reins after Lawson died
because Merle was living on the property
and everyone else would just show up once a month.
It was Merle and Margie that became the voice and face
of the organization for all intents and purposes.
Finally at some point the board said
you're not in charge.
It's supposed to be run by the board and not by Merle alone.
And so when they finally decided to assert their control
it led to a lot of bad blood.
- They voted me out in '97 and Margie out in '98.
There was no discussion, no charges.
Nothing about it.
They conspired against me and they just did it.
Coup d'etat they call 'em.
It was all a matter of the money deal.
It was 300 and some thousand that they sold
for this 20 acres, see.
The only comment she ever made about the group
that took over the university
was that she never wanted to see any of them again.
So that left Margie and I more or less on our own.
So we just moved into Racine, and went on our own.
And kept going up to Oshkosh,
and that's what really carried it.
They wanted me to turn over the Oshkosh booth to them.
Well I wouldn't do it, I kept it.
And up at Oshkosh, why Margie was (sighs) my helpmate.
After people would come to our booth,
as they would start to leave she would stop them
and she'd say to them,
- Alfred Lawson says for every act, there's a react.
Good acts bring good reactions,
bad acts bring bad reactions.
So instead of saying goodbye we say good reaction.
But you have to have the back of your hand
in front of your face, good reaction.
So I've been doing that now, this'll be my third year,
and I like that, with good reactions bring good acts.
- [Merle] It was just like that.
She just collapsed sometime in late morning.
And we took her to the hospital.
We stayed there a while.
She'd had a blood clot in her brain.
It was bad enough that it,
they could never bring her back to normal.
So the decision was to leave it.
And that's when she died.
(plinking melancholy music)
She wasn't just a partner.
She was a crusader.
Like me.
(clock chiming)
- I thought after Margie was gone that Merle was done.
And a year or so later, Merle asked if I'd ever heard
of a website called classmates.com.
And I had heard of it, but he said he was on there
and he met an old friend of his.
I had no idea who he was talking about or what,
and it turned it was Betty.
He and Betty at age 82 met once again online.
- When I first got the letter from Classmates
I thought, after all this time,
that can't be the same Merle Hayden,
but who would have a name like that?
Merle.
How many people do you know that have the name Merle?
And for us to get back together after 62 years,
never seeing or hearing anything from each other,
was wonderful.
Things just worked around to a point
where we got back together.
What causes things like that?
Why do you do that?
See Lawson has an answer, it's maneuverability.
But there's a,
a what do you call it, a physical
something that happens that causes that, I don't know.
But Merle will answer that for you
if you got a day or so to listen.
(light instrumental music)
- [Merle] The last 10 years having a partner,
Betty took up a lot of time.
That I should have been doing on this (mumbles).
As far as having a partner,
that wasn't part of my functioning in life.
I've got too much to do.
- [Betty] I accept his personality.
I guess I learned when I was 18
he was gonna do what he wanted to do
when he wanted to do it.
I don't think right at this point
that I'm coming back up here next year.
But I don't know, I might change my mind.
Right now I'm not able to get down the steps here
if I had to.
They'd have to come up and take me out.
- Dear Merle, I emailed the EAA Band Director
Elton Eisele a few weeks ago that I had a copy
of The Airline March and wanted to play it
at this year's airshow.
If you are able to attend
we should have you say a few words
about the first airliner before we play the song.
Lori Douglas.
Whether I get to Oshkosh is gonna be a question this time.
Up until this year though, it wasn't.
So I don't know whether I give up or not.
- [Jim] I don't know when or if Lawsonomy will end.
But when Merle goes it'll be a big blow to the organization.
He seems to be alone, tilting at windmills.
- [Merle] Nothing twisted?
- [Accordionist] Eh?
- This thing's twisted here with it.
- Hey, let a smile be your umbrella on a rainy, rainy day.
- Merle believes that I am a Lawsonomy student.
And depending on how you define that
I certainly am a Lawsonomy student.
This was supposed to be a recitation.
We'll see if I make it through all the way without cheating.
"The human race must learn to act together as one body.
"Just as the menorgs within man act together as one body.
"The most important thing man can do right now
"is to take an internal bath and clean out
"all of the piggish disorgs
"that infect his mental system and degrade him.
"That is something worth thinking about and working for."
Alfred Lawson.
(audience applauding)
My documentary is far from finished
because anyone who does not present simply
a cheerleading piece for the organization
Merle will not be happy.
And I don't know if he would communicate with me anymore.
That's the thing that worries me most.
You know, I made this promise to myself
about a dozen years ago that I would keep helping Merle
set up the booth and keep running the booth.
Because otherwise it would just be Merle.
That terrifies me, and I know that he will go
for as long as he can go
and if something stops him from going that same thing will
probably stop him permanently.
Oh, oh Merle.
- [Man] What was that?
- My guitar. - The guitar.
- [Woman] All right, I'll be back.
- Everybody's been very nice, and very helpful.
I had a...
- [Merle] Slight stroke on the right leg.
- I had a slight stroke and I was so bemuddled
I didn't know what I was doing.
So that's how I noticed that something was wrong.
Oh that's a job.
- [Merle] I know.
- Yeah, that's my suitcase to go to Naples with.
- [Merle] So tomorrow she'll be in Toledo
and the next night she'll be in Naples.
- I'll be home.
And that plan has all been worked out between Merle
and his thing that he has to do at the airshow.
I don't like him not to be with me because I,
I feel like I'm walking on one leg without him.
But he has to go to the airshow.
- There's almost nobody left that has any idea
of what I'm involved.
My whole life has been to make a better world
for the children of the future.
And I haven't changed my mind since I was 18 years old.
- He's gonna make a better world for the children.
- That's right.
- I'm a children.
- Right (laughs).
- Yeah, he laughs about it, but you know,
it wasn't hard for him to say goodbye to me
when we were 18 and I ask him
how long are you gonna be gone, he don't know.
So I feel like, uh-oh, he's gone.
And he might not come back.
See he's got different kind of feelings than we do.
He doesn't express his feelings very well.
And I think I should express them for him if he doesn't.
And I would like to be able to help him.
I don't know if I could.
I couldn't right now but I could later, maybe.
So.
But he makes the decisions for himself
and that's what I guess I have to go by.
Don't forget to come back.
(light guitar music)
- In the daily paper here, it reads, "The EAA Concert Band
"will be performing an arrangement of The Airline March
"by Edgar W. Croft at the Theater in the Woods.
"The inspiration for the performance of this piece
"is Merle J. Hayden, EAA member and historian
"of the Lawson Airliner and friend of its inventor
"Alfred W. Lawson.
"Hayden will be turning 90 years old
"in September this year."
32 years to get our name in there.
And Jim's responsible.
- I just sold the piece of music.
- Wednesday night, Theater in the Woods,
the band is going to play this.
The band is gonna play this.
- Oh, uh-huh.
- [Man] Where is that?
- The Theater in the Woods. - Okay.
- [Man] That's terrific.
- [Merle] I get to introduce it.
- Oh, do you really? - Yeah.
- Oh, so this is your year then.
This is your year.
- Is Elton here yet?
- [Woman] Who?
- The director.
- Yes, he's...
- Way back? - Yeah, way back.
The blue shirt.
- Elton Eisele.
- Hi, Merle Hayden.
- Nice to meet you, sir.
- Mutual.
- Yeah.
What I would like to do is try to get
this published for bands. - Oh boy.
- I think we could do that. - Wow.
I've been here 32 years,
this is the first break we've had.
Hi honey.
Hello, I am.
We're over in the woods, and I talked to the director.
And he is really thrilled about it
and he wants to publish it.
How 'bout that?
You talk about a break, you talk about a big break,
boy this was it.
Do your stand up exercises today.
You sit down and stand up five times.
Oh yeah.
We'll see you later, bye now.
- You talk to Betty today?
- [Merle] Mm-hmm, twice.
- [Jim] Did you call her or did she call you?
- Both. - Okay.
That's okay.
We can't have it be a one way relationship.
- Betty's kept him going these past few years,
and he's kept her going I think, so.
So if you move to Florida...
- I'm not moving to Florida.
- You're not. - Hmm-mm.
I really hate to leave Wisconsin because
so much is involved in right in that area there that,
if I hadn't a stuck with this place
they'd a all been gone long before this.
This is what kept going it for years.
- [Jim] Yeah.
(audience applauding)
- This last year, Lori Douglas, one of our players
in the group picked up
a piece of music in the Fly Mart
and arranged it for the group.
And we have Mr.
Mr. Hayden over here that's come up and tell you
some of the history of this piece, Mr. Hayden.
(audience applauding)
- The Airline March was written by a man,
a Chicago newspaper reporter, Edgar Croft,
who was a passenger on the first airliner, 1919.
It shows the ship that made Milwaukee famous.
We have a big book called the Aircraft Industry Builder.
It's my privileged to present it to our director tonight.
As my present.
(audience applauding)
("The Airline March" by EAA Band)
(audience applauding)
- Keep in touch. - Thank you so very much.
That was great, it worked out fantastic, thank you.
Thank you. - Thank you.
- Hi honey.
Well the climax is over.
They got the--
Yep, it was terrific, it was great, I'll tell you.
Everybody was saying it's too bad Betty wasn't there.
They've got pictures of the whole works.
Yeah, just a matter of time, you'll be able to see it all.
Yeah, it's too bad you couldn't have been here,
it was really something.
Well, it's the way it had to turn out.
We couldn't control it, so.
I know, I know.
Yeah, okay.
You have a good night's sleep tonight.
Okay, 'night honey.
Night honey, night.
Night, night.
(fireworks popping)
(quirky plinking music)
Oh, do we have an elevator?
Where do you go?
- Merle sent out letters to a lot of different
historical agencies around the country,
trying to interest them in material
about Lawson and his career.
And we were one of the places that responded.
This is where all the real work is done.
We basically put everything we've gotten from you
out on this table here.
Do you recognize this, right?
The Lawson aircraft.
- [Merle] Boy, I'm glad I hung on to this stuff.
- [Jonathan] I suppose you ask the average person
on the street who Alfred Lawson is
and they're probably not gonna know who he is.
But if the research material is available
he can be rediscovered and who knows,
there could be a renaissance of Alfred Lawson,
you never know.
- That's what we look forward to.
But that there is the Direct Credits book in braille.
There's only one like it.
- [Jonathan] Wow.
- Well I'm glad we come up and got a review
of all the stuff they've got and that they're pretty serious
about preservation of the material.
I begin to realize why my apartment
is a little bit bigger now though.
- Thank you, sir.
Always a pleasure.
- A whole day next time.
- Okay, yeah, okay.
Well, you know I don't want to wear you out, you know.
- Well you won't wear me out.
Now I'm all by myself.
In my thinking.
Memories are forever.
When Margie died I was only 80.
That's a good one of her.
The end of my life, I hadn't even given any thought to it.
I just had to carry on the work.
With or without her.
But after Betty died I was 90.
That's when it really hit me.
Coming back up here and realizing
that my years on Earth were strictly limited now.
That began to make quite an impression on me.
It's a heavy burden, I had a work to perform.
And that's
the whole part of my life is doing this big job.
(playful instrumental music)
- [Lawson] When my eyes no longer see objects about me,
when my ears no longer record sound messages,
when my nostrils do not attract odors,
nor my taste distinguish flavors,
when external pressure can no longer effect my mentality
nor internal pressure register the appeal of my voice,
when the power of suction has deserted me
and my body is dissolved
and the substances of which it is composed
have returned to the great ocean of density
from whence they came, my words must still talk
and urge you forward in a search of unlimited knowledge
to be found in the unexplored regions of penetrability.
(accoustic guitar)
- ManLife is available on DVD or to download
at ManLife the movie dot com.