Coughlin, Fr

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Charles Edward Coughlin (/ˈkɒɡlɪn/ KOG-lin; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower. Dubbed "The Radio Priest" and considered a leading demagogue,^[1] he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience. During the 1930s, when the U.S. population was about 120 million, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned to his weekly broadcasts.^[2]

Coughlin was born in Canada to working-class Irish Catholic parents. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1916, and in 1923 he was assigned to the National Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan. Coughlin began broadcasting his sermons during a time of increasing anti-Catholic sentiment across the globe. As his broadcasts became more political, he became increasingly popular.

Initially, Coughlin was a vocal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal; he later fell out with Roosevelt, accusing him of being too friendly to bankers. In 1934, he established a political organization called the National Union for Social Justice. Its platform called for monetary reforms, nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of labor rights. The membership ran into the millions but was not well organized locally.^[3]

After making attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program to broadcast antisemitic commentary. In the late 1930s, he supported some of the policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The broadcasts have been described as "a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture".^[4] His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, using the slogan "Social Justice". After the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939, the Roosevelt administration forced the cancellation of his radio program and forbade distribution by mail of his newspaper Social Justice. Coughlin largely vanished from the public arena, working as a parish pastor until retiring in 1966. He died in 1979 at the age of 88.

Early life and work:

Coughlin was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the only child of Irish Catholic parents, Amelia (née Mahoney) and Thomas Coughlin. Born in a working-class neighborhood, his modest home was situated between a Catholic cathedral and convent.^[5] His mother, who had regretted not becoming a nun, was the dominant figure in the household and instilled a deep sense of religion in the young Coughlin.^[6]

After his basic education, he attended St. Michael's College in Toronto in 1911, run by the Congregation of St. Basil, a society of priests dedicated to education. After graduation, Coughlin entered the Basilian Fathers. He prepared for holy orders at St. Basil's Seminary and was ordained to the priesthood in Toronto in 1916. He was assigned to teach at Assumption College, also operated by the Basilians, in Windsor, Ontario.[citation ^needed]

In 1923, a reorganization of Coughlin's religious order resulted in his departure. The Holy See required the Basilians to change the congregational structure from a society of common life patterned after the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice to a more monastic life. They had to take the traditional three religious vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Coughlin could not accept this.[citation ^needed]

Leaving the congregation, Coughlin moved across the Detroit River to the United States, settling in the booming industrial city of Detroit, Michigan, where the automotive industry was expanding rapidly. He was incardinated (or formally enrolled) by the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1923. After being transferred several times to different parishes, in 1926 he was assigned to the newly founded Shrine of the Little Flower, a congregation of some 25 Catholic families among the largely Protestant suburban community of Royal Oak, Michigan. His powerful preaching soon expanded the parish congregation.[citation ^needed]

Radio broadcaster:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_Shrine_of_the_Little_Flower,_Royal_Oak,_Michigan_-20201213_-04.jpg)

Coughlin's church, the National Shrine of the Little Flower}:

In 1926, disturbed by Ku Klux Klan-orchestrated cross burnings on his church grounds and aware that he was unable to pay back the diocesan loan which had paid for his church, Coughlin began broadcasting his Sunday sermons from local radio station WJR.^[7] Coughlin's weekly hour-long radio program denounced the KKK, appealing to his Catholic audience.^[8]

When WJR was acquired by Goodwill Stations in 1929, owner George A. Richards encouraged Coughlin to focus on politics instead of religious topics.^[9] Becoming increasingly vehement, the broadcasts attacked the banking system and Jews. Coughlin's program was picked up by CBS in 1930 for national broadcast.^[9] The tower where he would broadcast his radio sermons from was completed in 1931.^[10]

Stances:

George A. Richards

In January 1930, Coughlin began a series of attacks against socialism and Soviet Communism, which were both strongly opposed by the Catholic Church. He criticized capitalists in America whose greed had made communist ideologies attractive.^[11] He warned, "Let not the workingman be able to say that he is driven into the ranks of socialism by the inordinate and grasping greed of the manufacturer."^[12]

In 1931, the CBS radio network dropped Coughlin's program when he refused to accept network demands to review his scripts prior to broadcast, and several affiliates objected to the views of Coughlin.^[13] With backing by Richards, Coughlin established his own independently financed radio network for the Golden Hour of the Shrine of the Little Flower, with flagship WJR and WGAR in Cleveland as core stations;^[9] WGAR was established by Richards under the Goodwill Stations banner several months earlier.^[14] With Coughlin paying for the airtime on a contractual basis, the number of affiliates increased to 25 stations in August 1932^[15] and to a peak of 58 affiliates in 1938.^[16][17] Regional networks like the Yankee Network, the Quaker State Network, the Mohawk Network and the Colonial Network also carried the program.^[16] It became the largest independently run radio network of its type in the United States.

Throughout the 1930s, Coughlin's views changed. Eventually he was "openly antidemocratic", according to Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, "calling for the abolition of political parties and questioning the value of elections".^[18] His views were seen as mirroring those of Richards himself, who had held reactionary conservative beliefs.^[9] Leo Fitzpatrick, who had given Coughlin his initial airtime over WJR in 1926 and was retained as a part-owner when Richards purchased the station,^[19] continued to serve as a confidant and advisor to Coughlin.^[20]

Coughlin was critical of Prohibitionism, which he claimed was the work of "fanatics".^[21]

Support for FDR:

Against the deepening crisis of the Great Depression, Coughlin strongly endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1932 Presidential election. He was an early supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal reforms and coined the phrase "Roosevelt or Ruin", which entered common usage during the early days of the first FDR administration. Another phrase he became known for was "The New Deal is Christ's Deal".^[22] In January 1934, Coughlin testified before Congress in support of FDR's agenda, saying, "If Congress fails to back up the President in his monetary program, I predict a revolution in this country which will make the French Revolution look silly!" He also said to the Congressional hearing, "God is directing President Roosevelt."^[23]

Opposition to FDR:

Coughlin and Senator Elmer Thomas on the cover of *Time* in 1934

Though he received them politely, President Roosevelt had little interest in enacting Coughlin's economic proposals.^[10] Coughlin's support for Roosevelt and his New Deal faded in 1934 when he founded the National Union for Social Justice (NUSJ), a nationalistic workers' rights organization. Its leaders grew impatient with what they considered the President's unconstitutional and pseudo-capitalistic monetary policies. Coughlin preached increasingly about the negative influence of "money changers" and "permitting a group of private citizens to create money" at the expense of the general welfare.^[24] He spoke of the need for monetary reform based on "free silver". Coughlin claimed that the Great Depression in the United States was a "cash famine" and proposed monetary reforms, including the nationalization of the Federal Reserve System, as the solution. Coughlin was also upset by Roosevelt's recognition of the Soviet Union.^[17]

According to a 2021 study in the American Economic Review, Coughlin's broadcasts reduced Roosevelt's vote shares in the 1936 election.^[25]

Economic policies:

Coughlin urged Roosevelt to use silver to increase the money supply and also reorganize the financial system.^[10] These and other such ideas did not find a receptive audience.^[10] However, investment in silver was increased for a limited period following the Silver Purchase Act of 1934, which resulted in U.S. silver mines being nationalized between 1934 and 1943 through stamp taxes.^[26]

Among NUSJ's articles of faith were work and income guarantees, nationalizing vital industry, wealth redistribution through taxation of the wealthy, federal protection of workers' unions, and limiting property rights in favor of government control of the country's assets for public good.^[28]

Illustrative of Coughlin's disdain for free-market capitalism is his statement:

We maintain the principle that there can be no lasting prosperity if free competition exists in industry. Therefore, it is the business of government not only to legislate for a minimum annual wage and maximum working schedule to be observed by industry, but also so to curtail individualism that, if necessary, factories shall be licensed and their output shall be limited.^[29]

Money supply should be controlled by Congress:

In the 1930s, Coughlin called on Congress to take back control of the money supply, as it is given authority under Article I, Section 8, in the Enumerated Powers, to coin money and regulate the value thereof.^[30]

Radio audience:

Father Coughlin at a WXYZ microphone (Radio Stars magazine, May 1934)

By 1934, Coughlin was perhaps the most prominent Roman Catholic speaker on political and financial issues with a radio audience that reached tens of millions of people every week. Alan Brinkley wrote that "by 1934, he was receiving more than 10,000 letters every day" and that "his clerical staff at times numbered more than a hundred."^[31] He foreshadowed modern talk radio and televangelism.^[32] However, the University of Detroit Mercy claims that Coughlin's peak audience was in 1932.^[10] It is estimated that at his peak, one-third of the nation listened to his broadcasts.^[33] In 1933, The Literary Digest wrote, "Perhaps no man has stirred the country and cut as deep between the old order and the new as Father Charles E. Coughlin."^[34] At its peak in the early-to-mid 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners. Author Sheldon Marcus said that the size of Coughlin's radio audience "is impossible to determine, but estimates range up to 30 million each week".^[35] He expressed an isolationist, and conspiratorial, viewpoint that resonated with many listeners.

:{In 1934, when Coughlin began criticizing the New Deal, Roosevelt sent Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Frank Murphy, both prominent Irish Catholics, to try to influence him.^[36] Kennedy was reported to be a friend of Coughlin's.^[37][38] Coughlin periodically visited Roosevelt while accompanied by Kennedy.^[39] In an August 16, 1936, Boston Post article, Coughlin referred to Kennedy as the "shining star among the dim 'knights' in the [Roosevelt] Administration".^[40]

Increasingly opposed to Roosevelt, Coughlin began denouncing the President as a tool of Wall Street; Coughlin opposed the New Deal with growing vehemence, his radio talks attacked Roosevelt and capitalists and alleged existence of Jewish conspirators. Another nationally known priest, John A. Ryan, initially supported Coughlin but opposed him after Coughlin turned on Roosevelt.^[41] Joseph Kennedy, who strongly supported the New Deal, warned as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt's and "an out and out demagogue". Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) in a partly successful effort to get the Vatican to silence Coughlin in 1936.^[42] Coughlin ended his radio broadcasts, but continued to publish Social Justice. In 1940 and 1941, reversing his own views, Kennedy attacked the isolationism of Coughlin.^[43][44][36]}:

Coughlin proclaimed in 1935: "I have dedicated my life to fight against the heinous rottenness of modern capitalism because it robs the laborer of this world's goods. But blow for blow I shall strike against Communism, because it robs us of the next world's happiness."^[45] He accused Roosevelt of "leaning toward international socialism on the Spanish question" (referring to the Spanish Civil War). Coughlin's NUSJ gained a strong following among nativists and opponents of the Federal Reserve, especially in the Midwest. Michael Kazin has written that Coughlinites saw Wall Street and Communism as twin faces of a secular Satan. They believed that they were defending those people who were joined more by piety, economic frustration, and a common dread of powerful, modernizing enemies than through any class identity.^[46]

:{The priest supported populist Huey Long as governor of Louisiana until Long was assassinated in 1935. At a campaign rally for the NUSJ at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on May 11, 1936, Coughlin predicted the organization would "take half of Ohio" in the upcoming primary election, citing multiple congressional candidates that had the NUSJ's backing.^[47] Coughlin teamed up with Francis Townsend and Long associate Gerald L. K. Smith in support of William Lemke's Union Party 1936 campaign for president.^[48]

Coughlin presided over two additional high-profile events in Cleveland during the summer of 1936: the Townsend Convention held at Cleveland Public Hall during mid-July^[49] and the Union party convention at Municipal Stadium on August 16; at the latter, Coughlin fainted near the end of his speech.^[50] One of Coughlin's campaign slogans was "Less care for internationalism and more concern for national prosperity",^[51] which appealed to the 1930s U.S. isolationists and especially to Irish Catholics.^[52] Lemke's candidacy was a failure, with Coughlin taking a brief two-month hiatus after the election.^[53]}:

Antisemitism:

Coughlin's Social Justice magazine on sale in New York City, 1939

Jewish television producer Norman Lear recounts in his autobiography how his discovery of Father Coughlin's radio broadcasts at the age of 9 disturbed him deeply and made him aware of the alarming and widespread antisemitism in American society.^[54] After the 1936 election, Coughlin expressed overt sympathy for the fascist governments of Hitler and Mussolini as an antidote to Communism.^[55] He believed Jewish bankers were behind the Russian Revolution,^[56] backing the Jewish Bolshevism conspiracy theory.^[57][58][59] At this time, Coughlin also began to support a far-right organization called the Christian Front, which claimed that he was an inspiration; after the Front's New York City unit was raided by the FBI in January 1940 for plotting to overthrow the government, it was revealed Coughlin had never been a member.^[60][61]

Coughlin promoted his controversial beliefs by means of his radio broadcasts and his weekly rotogravure magazine Social Justice, which began publication in March 1936.^[62] During the last half of 1938, Social Justice reprinted weekly installments of the fraudulent, antisemitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.^[63] Despite this, Coughlin denied on various occasions that he was antisemitic,^[64] yet he received indirect funding from Nazi Germany during this period.^[65] A New York Times report from Berlin identified Coughlin as "the German hero in America for the moment" with his sympathetic statements towards Nazism as "a defensive front against Bolshevism".^[66] In February 1939, when the American Nazi organization the German American Bund held a large rally in New York City,^[67] Coughlin immediately distanced himself from the organization, and in his weekly radio address he said: "Nothing can be gained by linking ourselves with any organization which is engaged in agitating racial animosities or propagating racial hatreds. Organizations which stand upon such platforms are immoral and their policies are only negative."^[68]

:{On November 20, 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht (the Nazi attack on German and Austrian Jews, their synagogues, and businesses), Coughlin, referring to the millions of Christians who had been killed by the Communists in Russia, said, "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted."^[69] After this speech, three radio stations—WMCA in New York City, WIND in Gary, Indiana, and WJJD in Chicago—dropped the program the following week on grounds of inciting racial prejudice, with Coughlin accusing them of being under "Jewish ownership". WMCA made their displeasure immediately known, with their booth announcer saying on-air after his November 20 speech, "Unfortunately, Father Coughlin has uttered many misstatements of fact".^[66]

Station president Donald Flamm viewed an advance copy of the sermon and pressured Coughlin to edit it twice but did not see the final text, which he said "was calculated to stir up religious and racial hatred and dissension in this country".^[70][a] When WIND and WJJD also requested an advance copy of Coughlin's next sermon for prior review and approval, his refusal prompted them to drop the program.^[66] On December 18, 1938, thousands of Coughlin's followers picketed WMCA's studios in protest, with some protesters yelling antisemitic statements, such as "Send Jews back where they came from in leaky boats!" and "Wait until Hitler comes over here!" The protests continued for several months.^[71]}:

Backlash:

While members of the Catholic hierarchy did not approve of Coughlin, only Coughlin's superior—Bishop Michael Gallagher of Detroit—had the canonical authority to curb him, and Gallagher supported the "Radio Priest".^[72] Owing to Gallagher's autonomy and the prospect of the Coughlin problem leading to a schism, the Catholic leadership took no action.^[72] In 1938, Cardinal George Mundelein, archbishop of Chicago, issued a formal condemnation of Coughlin: "[Coughlin was] not authorized to speak for the Catholic Church, nor does he represent the doctrine or sentiments of the Church."^[17]

Coughlin increasingly attacked the president's policies. The administration decided that, although the First Amendment protected free speech, it did not necessarily apply to broadcasting because the radio spectrum was a "limited national resource" and as a result was regulated as a publicly owned commons.[citation ^needed] The authorities imposed new regulations and restrictions for the specific purpose of forcing Coughlin off the air. For the first time, the authorities required regular radio broadcasters to seek operating permits.[citation ^needed]

When Coughlin's permit was denied, he was temporarily silenced. Coughlin worked around the new restrictions by purchasing air time and playing his speeches via transcription. However, having to buy the weekly air time on individual stations severely reduced his reach and also strained his financial resources.^[b] Meanwhile, Bishop Gallagher died and was replaced by a prelate, Edward Aloysius Mooney, who was less sympathetic to Coughlin than Bishop Gallagher had been. In 1939, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis used Coughlin's radio talks to illustrate propaganda methods in their book The Fine Art of Propaganda, which was intended to show propaganda's effects against democracy.^[73]

:{After the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939, Coughlin made an on-air appeal for listeners to travel to Washington as "an army of peace" to stop the repeal of the Neutrality Acts, a neutrality-oriented arms embargo law, leading opponents to accuse Coughlin of stoking incitement bordering on civil war.^[17] This resulted in an intervention to finally remove Coughlin from the air, not by a federal agency but by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the industry's lobby group.^[74] The NAB formed a self-regulating Code Committee that imposed limits on the sale of air time to people deemed to be controversial.^[75]

Ratified on October 1, 1939, the code required manuscripts for programs to be submitted in advance and effectively prohibited on-air editorials or the discussion of controversial subjects, including non-interventionism, with the threat of license revocation for radio stations that failed to comply.^[76][77] This code was drafted specifically as a response to Coughlin and his program.^[17] WJR, WGAR and the Yankee Network threatened to quit their memberships in the NAB over the code,^[78] but acquiesced and adopted it,^[c] with the majority of affiliate contracts running out at the end of October.^[79] In the September 23, 1940, issue of Social Justice, Coughlin announced that he had been forced off the air "by those who control circumstances beyond my reach".^[80]}:

Newspaper shutdown and end of political activities:

Coughlin said that, although the government had assumed the right to regulate any on-air broadcasts, the First Amendment still guaranteed and protected freedom of the written press. He could still print his editorials without censorship in his own newspaper Social Justice. After the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. declaration of war in December 1941, anti-interventionist movements (such as the America First Committee) rapidly lost support. Isolationists such as Coughlin acquired a reputation for sympathizing with the enemy. The Roosevelt Administration stepped in again. On April 14, 1942, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle wrote a letter to the Postmaster General, Frank Walker, in which he suggested that the second-class mailing privilege of Social Justice be revoked, in order to make it impossible for Coughlin to deliver the papers to its readers.^[81]

Under the Espionage Act of 1917, the mailing permit for Social Justice was temporarily suspended on April 14,^[82][83][84] confining distribution to the Boston area, where it was distributed by private delivery trucks.^[85] Walker scheduled a hearing on permanent suspension for April 29, which was postponed until May 4.^[86]

Meanwhile, Biddle was also exploring the possibility of bringing an indictment against Coughlin for sedition as a possible "last resort".^[87] Hoping to avoid such a potentially sensational and divisive sedition trial, Biddle arranged to end the publication of Social Justice by meeting with banker Leo Crowley, a Roosevelt appointee and friend of Bishop Mooney. Crowley relayed Biddle's message to Bishop Mooney that the government was willing to "deal with Coughlin in a restrained manner if he [Mooney] would order Coughlin to cease his public activities".^[88] Consequently, on May 1, Bishop Mooney ordered that Coughlin should stop his political activities and confine himself to his duties as a parish priest, warning him that his priestly faculties could potentially be removed if he refused to comply with the order. Coughlin complied with the order and was allowed to remain the pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower. The pending hearing before the Postmaster General, which had been scheduled to take place three days later, was canceled.[citation ^needed]

Later life:

\(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grave_of_Charles_Edward_Coughlin_%281891%E2%80%931979%29_at_Holy_Sepulchre_Cemetery,_Southfield,_Michigan_1.jpg)Coughlin's grave at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery

Although he had been forced to end his public career in 1942, Coughlin served as a parish pastor until his retirement in 1966. On May 30, 1951, he attended the funeral of George A. Richards,^[89] who died following a long legal fight to keep his broadcast licenses amid accusations of antisemitism^[90] and using the stations to further his political interests.^[91]

Coughlin died in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 1979 at the age of 88.^[92] Church officials stated that he had been bedridden for several weeks.^[93] He was buried in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan.^[94]

References in popular culture

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http://www.tnr.com/print/article/politics/79315/actually-glenn-beck-not-father-coughlin

You haven't truly arrived as a right-wing demagogue on the American airwaves until youâve been compared to Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, the undisputed âFather of Hate Radio,â as one biographer described him. Those pegged as modern-day Coughlins have been, at various points in our recent history, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill OâReilly, Pat Buchanan, Sean Hannity, and Andrew Breitbart (who LA Observed described as âL.A.âs Father Coughlin,â which is a start).

But no one has been accorded the honor more these days than Glenn Beck, who devoted a segment on his Fox television show back in March to debunking what he called the âlaughableâ Coughlin comparison made âover and over againâ against him by âthe Left.â In the wake of Beckâs triumphantly anodyne palooza on the Mall in Washington D.C., the charge has been made with even greater frequency. Keith Olbermann started calling him âFather Cough-Glenn.â Bloombergâs Al Hunt wrote a column comparing the two âmesmerizing broadcasters able to articulate the anger and frustration of a flock frightened by economic hard times.â And, in his new book about BeckâTears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of AmericaâDana Milbank devotes a chapter to placing the two menâsstatements side by side, showing that both railed against government tyranny (our own and others), floated crackpot theories, celebrated the founders and their works, warned of the predations of Europe and international bureaucrats, and heaped praise on an awesome deity. With Beckâs recent Coughlinlike indictment of George Soros as an unrepentant accomplice in the deaths of other Jews and a âpuppet masterâ able to topple governments at will, itâs a surprise more commentators havenât drawn the comparison.

But Beck is no Coughlin. Beckâs comments and work certainly arenât defensible. But the comparison to Coughlin is not only flawedâit is historically illiterate, denying Coughlin, pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan, his rightful place as one of the most odious characters in American history.

Coughlin was a giant in the history of radio, both the prototypical televangelist (he raked in the bucks) and the first political loudmouth with a mass following: He drew 40 million listeners in the early thirties to his Sunday afternoon program, double the 20 million that Rush Limbaugh has claimed for his audience. But he didnât just talk; he urged actionâillegal and terrifying. By1938, increasingly unhinged and openly anti-Semitic, Coughlin was using his radio pulpit and his 200,000-circulation newspaper, Social Justice, to advocate for the creation of a violent hate group, the Christian Front. The group soon boasted members numbering in the thousands throughout the cities of Northeast. It has largely been forgotten that Coughlinâs âplatoons,â as he called them, were responsible for a months-long campaign of low-level mayhem in New York City: They attacked Jews with fists and sometimes knifes. They boycotted Jewish-owned businesses (guided by a âChristian indexâ of shopkeepers) and sometimes smashed their windows in the German fashion. This ugly episode culminated when 17 Coughlinites were arrested by the FBI in January 1940 and charged with planning acts of terrorism against Jewish individuals and institutions (and those deemed their allies).

Although he didnât have a role in orchestrating the plan, Coughlin, after a brief hesitation, gave his full-throated support to the âBrooklyn Boys,â saying in a January 21,1940, broadcast that âI take my stand beside the Christian Fronters â¦ [and] â¦ reaffirm every word which I have said in advocating [the Frontâs] formation.â Beck hasnât come close to scaling those heights.

The proximate cause of the Christian Frontâs campaign in New York was Coughlinâs Kristallnacht address of November 20, 1938, perhaps the vilest in the history of American broadcasting. With the world unable to deny that the Nazi regime was prepared to commit mass violence against Jews, Coughlin argued with his phony Irish brogue (his parents had never seen the oul sod) that the atrocity was merely a âdefense mechanism against communism,â which was the product of âatheistic Jews.â He sneered at the attendant publicity, âattributable to the fact that Jews, through their native ability, have risen to such high places in radio and in press and in finance.â In the end, he said America should avoid any âunreasonable reprisalsâ against the Hitlerite regime. âLet charity be the law of our conduct,â he concluded, âand let justice for all be our guiding star.â The Little Flower Choristers then took the microphone to sing the hymn âO What Could My Jesus Do Moreâ with Cyril Dutherell at the console of the organ.

Alone among Coughlinâs more than 60 affiliatesâthe priest had an audience of about 15 million listeners at this point in his career, author Donald Warren has estimatedâWMCA in New York had heard enough. Management canceled his show after Coughlin refused to allow them to alter his scripts before he delivered them. (A Newark station promptly offered him airtime.) Coughlinâs militiaâhe had called for âa virile, closely woven Christian Frontâ to serve as âdefense mechanism against Red activities and as a protector of Christianity and Americanismâ and many chapters had formed throughout the five boroughs and in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and other citiesâwas outraged. Hundreds began picketing the WMCA station in midtown Manhattan every Sunday, shouting anti-Semitic slogans, stopping traffic, and instigating fights with passing Jews (or those who seemed to the thugs to be Jews). The CF held street-corner rallies throughout the city, often at highly trafficked intersections in communities populated by Jews and Irish. (âMost members of the Front were Irish Catholics,â wrote scholar Ronald H. Bayor). In July 1939, James Wechsler wrote in The Nation of âseveral stabbings, a multitude of street fights, deepening tension in mixed neighborhoods â¦ [which is] almost uniformly ignored by the press, partly because it fears to tread on Catholic toes and partly because it still believes in the silent treatment for anti-Semitism.â

But that changed in January 1940. J. Edgar Hoover was flown into town to announce the arrest of 17 Coughlinites who had hatched a delusional plan to overthrow the United States by committing acts of terror against Jewish life and property but also against U.S. elected officials and installations (the Customs House, post offices). The plot followed the form of the classic Irish rebellion. The rebels did not think they could possibly overthrow the government themselves. No, they hoped that the governmentâs draconian response in putting down their ârevolutionary gestureâ (as Irish historian R.F. Foster described the failed 1848 Young Irelander rebellion) would inspire the slumbering (anti-Semitic, they hoped) masses to rise up against their rulers. They would then set up a right-wing dictatorship and suppress the Jewish population. It didnât work, of course. Even though the case against the Christian Fronters fell apartâthe jury had a hard time believing that they had the means to pull off such a far-fetched plotâthe group was forgotten as the United States entered World War II and the vast majority of Americans joined the fight against the Axis powers.

All, it seems, except for Father Coughlin. He left the radio airwaves of his own volition in 1940, but he continued to publish Nazi propaganda in Social Justice until the spring of 1942, when the U.S. government suspended his second-class mailing permit, charging that the paper obstructed the war effort in violation of the 1917 Espionage Act. Coughlinâs boss, Detroit Archbishop Edward Mooney, was roused to put his foot down and demand that Coughlin not fight the governmentâs action in court. He bowed to ecclesiastical authority. At least, thatâs been the standard story for decades. Author Richard Sipe, a former priest who has written several books about the sexuality of Catholic priests, offers evidence that Coughlin stayed silent only after Hoover called him up and threatened to go public with âproof of Coughlinâs homosexuality.â

Coughlin lost his standing in American society (although not the Catholic Church, which allowed him to maintain his pastorship until his retirement in 1966) when he sided too openly with our avowed wartime enemies. But he never faced real punishment for his other sins: Coughlin didnât merely use hateful rhetoric against Jews. He wasnât just willing to use the American airwaves and mail system to foment violence against a minority of his fellow Americans. He celebrated the criminals who attempted to spark an American pogrom.

Yes, you can hear the strains of Coughlinism on the airwaves today. And, in many ways, Glenn Beck, with his fervent piety and wild-eyed talk of conspiracy, is closer to Coughlin than steakhouse Republicans like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. Like Coughlin, he comes off as a somewhat unbalanced Seeker of the Truth who thrives on the scorn of his enemies.

But there is currently no Father Coughlin, properly understood, engaging an appreciable audience in our country todayâno one urging or condoning violence to millions of followers. We should all hope that it remains that way.

Peter Duffy is an author and journalist in New York.

Source URL: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/79315/actually-glenn-beck-not-father-coughlin

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You havenÃ¢ÂÂt truly arrived as a right-wing demagogue on the American airwaves until youÃ¢ÂÂve been compared to Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, the undisputed Ã¢ÂÂFather of Hate Radio,Ã¢ÂÂ as one biographer described him. Those pegged as modern-day Coughlins have been, at various points in our recent history, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill OÃ¢ÂÂReilly, Pat Buchanan, Sean Hannity, and Andrew Breitbart (who LA Observed described as Ã¢ÂÂL.A.Ã¢ÂÂs Father Coughlin,Ã¢ÂÂ which is a start).

But no one has been accorded the honor more these days than Glenn Beck, who devoted a segment on his Fox television show back in March to debunking what he called the Ã¢ÂÂlaughableÃ¢ÂÂ Coughlin comparison made Ã¢ÂÂover and over againÃ¢ÂÂ against him by Ã¢ÂÂthe Left.Ã¢ÂÂ In the wake of BeckÃ¢ÂÂs triumphantly anodyne palooza on the Mall in Washington D.C., the charge has been made with even greater frequency. Keith Olbermann started calling him Ã¢ÂÂFather Cough-Glenn.Ã¢ÂÂ BloombergÃ¢ÂÂs Al Hunt wrote a column comparing the two Ã¢ÂÂmesmerizing broadcasters able to articulate the anger and frustration of a flock frightened by economic hard times.Ã¢ÂÂ And, in his new book about BeckÃ¢ÂÂTears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of AmericaÃ¢ÂÂDana Milbank devotes a chapter to placing the two menÃ¢ÂÂsstatements side by side, showing that both railed against government tyranny (our own and others), floated crackpot theories, celebrated the founders and their works, warned of the predations of Europe and international bureaucrats, and heaped praise on an awesome deity. With BeckÃ¢ÂÂs recent Coughlinlike indictment of George Soros as an unrepentant accomplice in the deaths of other Jews and a Ã¢ÂÂpuppet masterÃ¢ÂÂ able to topple governments at will, itÃ¢ÂÂs a surprise more commentators havenÃ¢ÂÂt drawn the comparison.

But Beck is no Coughlin. BeckÃ¢ÂÂs comments and work certainly arenÃ¢ÂÂt defensible. But the comparison to Coughlin is not only flawedÃ¢ÂÂit is historically illiterate, denying Coughlin, pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan, his rightful place as one of the most odious characters in American history.

Coughlin was a giant in the history of radio, both the prototypical televangelist (he raked in the bucks) and the first political loudmouth with a mass following: He drew 40 million listeners in the early thirties to his Sunday afternoon program, double the 20 million that Rush Limbaugh has claimed for his audience. But he didnÃ¢ÂÂt just talk; he urged actionÃ¢ÂÂillegal and terrifying. By1938, increasingly unhinged and openly anti-Semitic, Coughlin was using his radio pulpit and his 200,000-circulation newspaper, Social Justice, to advocate for the creation of a violent hate group, the Christian Front. The group soon boasted members numbering in the thousands throughout the cities of Northeast. It has largely been forgotten that CoughlinÃ¢ÂÂs Ã¢ÂÂplatoons,Ã¢ÂÂ as he called them, were responsible for a months-long campaign of low-level mayhem in New York City: They attacked Jews with fists and sometimes knifes. They boycotted Jewish-owned businesses (guided by a Ã¢ÂÂChristian indexÃ¢ÂÂ of shopkeepers) and sometimes smashed their windows in the German fashion. This ugly episode culminated when 17 Coughlinites were arrested by the FBI in January 1940 and charged with planning acts of terrorism against Jewish individuals and institutions (and those deemed their allies).

Although he didnÃ¢ÂÂt have a role in orchestrating the plan, Coughlin, after a brief hesitation, gave his full-throated support to the Ã¢ÂÂBrooklyn Boys,Ã¢ÂÂ saying in a January 21,1940, broadcast that Ã¢ÂÂI take my stand beside the Christian Fronters Ã¢ÂÂ¦ [and] Ã¢ÂÂ¦ reaffirm every word which I have said in advocating [the FrontÃ¢ÂÂs] formation.Ã¢ÂÂ Beck hasnÃ¢ÂÂt come close to scaling those heights.

The proximate cause of the Christian FrontÃ¢ÂÂs campaign in New York was CoughlinÃ¢ÂÂs Kristallnacht address of November 20, 1938, perhaps the vilest in the history of American broadcasting. With the world unable to deny that the Nazi regime was prepared to commit mass violence against Jews, Coughlin argued with his phony Irish brogue (his parents had never seen the oul sod) that the atrocity was merely a Ã¢ÂÂdefense mechanism against communism,Ã¢ÂÂ which was the product of Ã¢ÂÂatheistic Jews.Ã¢ÂÂ He sneered at the attendant publicity, Ã¢ÂÂattributable to the fact that Jews, through their native ability, have risen to such high places in radio and in press and in finance.Ã¢ÂÂ In the end, he said America should avoid any Ã¢ÂÂunreasonable reprisalsÃ¢ÂÂ against the Hitlerite regime. Ã¢ÂÂLet charity be the law of our conduct,Ã¢ÂÂ he concluded, Ã¢ÂÂand let justice for all be our guiding star.Ã¢ÂÂ The Little Flower Choristers then took the microphone to sing the hymn Ã¢ÂÂO What Could My Jesus Do MoreÃ¢ÂÂ with Cyril Dutherell at the console of the organ.

Alone among CoughlinÃ¢ÂÂs more than 60 affiliatesÃ¢ÂÂthe priest had an audience of about 15 million listeners at this point in his career, author Donald Warren has estimatedÃ¢ÂÂWMCA in New York had heard enough. Management canceled his show after Coughlin refused to allow them to alter his scripts before he delivered them. (A Newark station promptly offered him airtime.) CoughlinÃ¢ÂÂs militiaÃ¢ÂÂhe had called for Ã¢ÂÂa virile, closely woven Christian FrontÃ¢ÂÂ to serve as Ã¢ÂÂdefense mechanism against Red activities and as a protector of Christianity and AmericanismÃ¢ÂÂ and many chapters had formed throughout the five boroughs and in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and other citiesÃ¢ÂÂwas outraged. Hundreds began picketing the WMCA station in midtown Manhattan every Sunday, shouting anti-Semitic slogans, stopping traffic, and instigating fights with passing Jews (or those who seemed to the thugs to be Jews). The CF held street-corner rallies throughout the city, often at highly trafficked intersections in communities populated by Jews and Irish. (Ã¢ÂÂMost members of the Front were Irish Catholics,Ã¢ÂÂ wrote scholar Ronald H. Bayor). In July 1939, James Wechsler wrote in The Nation of Ã¢ÂÂseveral stabbings, a multitude of street fights, deepening tension in mixed neighborhoods Ã¢ÂÂ¦ [which is] almost uniformly ignored by the press, partly because it fears to tread on Catholic toes and partly because it still believes in the silent treatment for anti-Semitism.Ã¢ÂÂ

But that changed in January 1940. J. Edgar Hoover was flown into town to announce the arrest of 17 Coughlinites who had hatched a delusional plan to overthrow the United States by committing acts of terror against Jewish life and property but also against U.S. elected officials and installations (the Customs House, post offices). The plot followed the form of the classic Irish rebellion. The rebels did not think they could possibly overthrow the government themselves. No, they hoped that the governmentÃ¢ÂÂs draconian response in putting down their Ã¢ÂÂrevolutionary gestureÃ¢ÂÂ (as Irish historian R.F. Foster described the failed 1848 Young Irelander rebellion) would inspire the slumbering (anti-Semitic, they hoped) masses to rise up against their rulers. They would then set up a right-wing dictatorship and suppress the Jewish population. It didnÃ¢ÂÂt work, of course. Even though the case against the Christian Fronters fell apartÃ¢ÂÂthe jury had a hard time believing that they had the means to pull off such a far-fetched plotÃ¢ÂÂthe group was forgotten as the United States entered World War II and the vast majority of Americans joined the fight against the Axis powers.

All, it seems, except for Father Coughlin. He left the radio airwaves of his own volition in 1940, but he continued to publish Nazi propaganda in Social Justice until the spring of 1942, when the U.S. government suspended his second-class mailing permit, charging that the paper obstructed the war effort in violation of the 1917 Espionage Act. CoughlinÃ¢ÂÂs boss, Detroit Archbishop Edward Mooney, was roused to put his foot down and demand that Coughlin not fight the governmentÃ¢ÂÂs action in court. He bowed to ecclesiastical authority. At least, thatÃ¢ÂÂs been the standard story for decades. Author Richard Sipe, a former priest who has written several books about the sexuality of Catholic priests, offers evidence that Coughlin stayed silent only after Hoover called him up and threatened to go public with Ã¢ÂÂproof of CoughlinÃ¢ÂÂs homosexuality.Ã¢ÂÂ

Coughlin lost his standing in American society (although not the Catholic Church, which allowed him to maintain his pastorship until his retirement in 1966) when he sided too openly with our avowed wartime enemies. But he never faced real punishment for his other sins: Coughlin didnÃ¢ÂÂt merely use hateful rhetoric against Jews. He wasnÃ¢ÂÂt just willing to use the American airwaves and mail system to foment violence against a minority of his fellow Americans. He celebrated the criminals who attempted to spark an American pogrom.

But there is currently no Father Coughlin, properly understood, engaging an appreciable audience in our country todayÃ¢ÂÂno one urging or condoning violence to millions of followers. We should all hope that it remains that way.

Peter Duffy is an author and journalist in New York.

Source URL: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/79315/actually-glenn-beck-not-father-coughlin

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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-screenwriting-mystic-who-wanted-be-american-fuhrer-180970449/

see Bund for US

When en Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933, an American named William Dudley Pelley believed the Führer’s rise was the fulfillment of a prophecy revealed to him by the spirit world in 1929. It was a sign, he thought, ushering in his own ascent to power, and he announced the creation of the Silver Legion, a Christian militia dedicated to the spiritual and political renewal of the United States. Jesus, Pelley reported, even dropped a line to say he approved of the plan.

That was the beginning of the group that a Congressional committee would later characterize as “probably the largest, best financed and best publicized” Nazi-copycats in the United States (Nazi Germany chose to keep Pelley and his spirits at arm’s length). A former novelist and Hollywood screenwriter who had begun publishing mystical and spiritual writings in the 1920s, Pelley dubbed himself “The Chief” of the group that became known as the Silver Shirts, due to the shimmery gray-and-blue uniforms with giant red “L”s embroidered over the heart that Pelley, a student of Hollywood pizzaz, designed himself.

Pelley’s goal was to eventually take power and implement a plan he called “Christian Economics in the United States,” a scheme he claimed was neither communist, fascist or capitalist, in which all property was owned by the state and where white citizens received “shares” based on their loyalty that guaranteed an income. African-Americans would be re-enslaved and Jews would be excluded from the nation. At the top would be “The Chief,” in emulation of Pelley’s idol Adolf Hitler.

While his ideas, steeped in spiritualism and racial theory, were never that popular—historians estimate the Silver Shirts maxed out at a membership of 15,000—Pelley wasn’t alone in admiring Hitler or the economic turnaround of 1930s Germany. The decade running up to the war found members of both the Democrats and Republicans arguing against involvement in the festering conflict in Europe. American isolationists feared a repeat of the mass casualties of World War I. Many in the business community sought to protect their investments in the European markets. And some Americans even spread German propaganda, actively spied for the Third Reich, and went so far as to advocate fascism and anti-Semitism in the United States.

Those Americans are the subject that Fresno State University historian Bradley W. Hart explores in his new book, Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States.

The Silver Shirts were just one organization that thought Nazism could translate to American politics. The German American Bund was the largest pro-Nazi organization, tallying about 30,000 members at one point. The group supported the Nazi regime and practiced its own version of American Nazism, including fielding paramilitary units armed with clubs and costuming its members in uniforms and swastika armbands. It was large enough to run several summer camps for American Nazi youth and even sent its best and brightest to Germany for indoctrination. In 1939, the organization held a 20,000-person rally at Madison Square Garden under a giant banner of George Washington flanked by swastikas, and roughed up a Jewish protestor who rushed the stage, manhandling him and ripping off his pants. Soon after, however, corruption scandals took down the Bund.

One of the most influential Nazi defenders didn’t start out as a champion of the Third Reich. When Father Charles Coughlin, a Canadian Catholic priest based in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oaks, began his local radio show in 1926, its focus was on religion and fighting the growing influence of the Ku Klux Klan. But over the course of the Great Depression, Coughlin grew more and more political—and popular, advocating economic and political schemes straight from Hitler’s playbook, including the boycott of Jewish businesses. He directly praised the Führer to millions of American listeners before church authorities shut him down. “There are few forces more powerful than religion, and [Coughlin and other right-wing preachers] used their authority to convert Americans to a prejudicial and hateful ideology,” Hart writes. “It is telling that the German government viewed these men as key propaganda assets in the United States and were reluctant to give them direct aid only because it might make them less effective in spreading pro-Nazi ideas.”...

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Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-screenwriting-mystic-who-wanted-be-american-fuhrer-180970449

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