Our Man in Arlington

 I was jarred recently to come across a local right-wing political advocacy group that, I sense, has largely been forgotten.

The Homeowners Federation of Arlington, which fought for smaller local government between 1946 and the early 70s, sought to block school integration, higher-density development and “low-rent housing.”

Its leader was a retired investigator for the Unemployment Compensation Board in Washington, D.C., named Karl O. Spiess (1900-85). From his home at No. 1 N. Fenwick St. in Lyon Park, he published a newsletter (slogan: “Chasing Homeowners to the Wall”). It criticized liberal-leaning policy types and such groups as Arlingtonians for a Better County and the League of Women Voters.

Monthly meetings were held at what then was the Broyhill Auditorium at 4610 Lee Highway (today it’s Long and Foster realty). Those seeking to join the federation were asked to mail $5 annual dues to Carleton Carter at 3621 S. 14th St., according to papers collected by the Center for Local History.

The group denounced Arlington’s liberal leaders, linking them to the Roosevelt administration “New Dealers” such as civil rights leader Joseph Rauh and communist sympathizer-turned-liberal and perjurer Alger Hiss.

Spiess — quoting Thomas Jefferson and the Bible — blasted foreign aid and criticized the United World Federalists. He testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation. But he was no fan of the liberal National Council of Churches, or of Unitarians.

In the early 1950s, the publication criticized pro-integration couple Ed and Elizabeth Campbell (she later the founder of WETA) and civil rights activist Carolyn Planck. Spiess would praise Helen Lane, the American Nazi-sympathizing appointee to the Arlington school board. He applauded Gov. J. Lindsay Almond, who from Richmond led the “massive resistance” to the school integration called for by the Supreme Court in 1954. (In 1956 Richmond cancelled Arlington’s elections for that board once the push for integration gained momentum.)

“Excessive taxation jeopardizes homeowner security,” the homeowners group stressed in announcing its opposition to the “fiscal chaos” of school bond referenda. “Vote for this $10 million and it will be the last one for schools,” the group warned in September 1963. It lamented the 1957 founding of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, warning against an “interlocking of other groups from outside of Arlington.”

In the early ‘60s it praised conservative future county board member Harold Casto, opposing the “redevelopment craze” that would bring the high-rises of Rosslyn. “Our organization believes an informed citizenry can prevent the usurpation of power by selfish minority groups and self-centered politicians,” it argued in January 1964. By then, the homeowners group was opposing the rise of liberal county board candidates Joe Fisher and Tom Richards. It blasted rapid transit, bemoaning the “staggering amount of money spent on surveys and contracts and consulting firms.”

In February 1968, Spiess wrote to U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. opposing the federal fair housing bill and a minority housing plan. His group cast a skeptical eye on the 1967 proposal to purchase land that became Arlington Public Schools Outdoor Lab in Fauquier County, founded by Arlington biology teacher Phoebe Knipling.

In September 1968, the homeowners group stopped meeting at the Broyhill auditorium. It held a gathering at Nottingham Elementary School. By the early 70s, membership had faded away. Their road for Arlington was the one not taken.

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Here’s an update on combat veteran and Army paratrooper Treavor Wooden, the licensed truck driver who panhandles at the exit from I-66 at the Arlington-Falls Church border.

Wooden’s health struggles—hospitalization for melanoma and a bone marrow transplant—delayed his plan to accept a commercial trucking job. His weight, during a planned 120-day recovery, has dropped from over 200 lbs. to 168, he told me.

But living in veterans housing, he enjoys circling the running track at Thomas Jefferson Middle School using his walker. And, grateful for an ongoing gofundme campaign launched by neighbors Katherine and Genevieve, he has cheerfully renewed his commercial license.