That was my first thought too.
I remember hearing about them when I was a kid in 1950s and it was a curiosity to me. Now I don't remember what they stood/stand for.
Basically right wingers. Far, far right wingers. Racists too.
Reuben Fleet was rumoured to be one of the founders too.
Fleet owned Consolidated Aircraft when WW2 broke out. He had been in the Army and for some years early in the 1900's he had been assigned to break up unions in Southern California.
When WW2 broke out Consolidated had the PBY Catalina and B-24 Liberator planes in production. When the government institued war profiteering rules to prevent munitions suppliers from overcharging, Fleet went ballistic. He quickly sold Consolidated to Vultee aircraft company and left the company.
Fleet wasn't a bad guy. He worked as an advisor to FDR and by all accounts did his best to help win the war. But he refused to participate in what he felt was Communism.
He was one of those people who grew up at the turn of the century and just couldn't accept the modern world despite being a big part of what made the world modern. Whether Fleet subscribed to the idea that welfare was a secret plan to move black people to cities so that they could overthrow the government, I don't know.
But that is what the John Birch society was all about.