Charles Coughlin

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Charles Coughlin

Father Charles Edward Coughlin (October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979) was a Canadian-born Roman Catholic priest at Royal Oak, Michigan's Shrine of the Little Flower Catholic Church. He was one of the first evangelists to reach a widespread listening audience over a broadcast medium (radio during the Great Depression). Later in his career, he became increasingly anti-Semitic and radical in his views.

Early broadcasts and political activism

Coughlin was born in Hamilton, Ontario, to Irish parents, and was ordained in Toronto in 1916 and taught at Assumption College in Windsor, Ontario, before moving to Detroit in 1923. He began his radio broadcasts in 1926, broadcasting weekly sermons on a regular program. He was an early supporter Franklin D. Roosevelt's reforms, and coined the phrase "Roosevelt or ruin," which was famous during the early days of the FDR administration. However, Coughlin's focus changed during the 1930s as he preached more and more and about the negative influence of "international bankers" and of Wall Street on the general welfare of the United States, and about the need for monetary reform. Coughlin claimed that the Depression was a cash famine, and proposed unorthodox monetary policies, including the elimination of the Federal Reserve System as the solution.

Thus, Coughlin placed himself in a third position, in contrast to the Republicans, who believed in a return to laissez-faire economics, and the New Dealers, who advocated government economic intervention and a Keynesian economic approach. He endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1932 Presidential election.

By 1934 Coughlin was perhaps the most prominent Catholic spokesman on political and financial issues in the 1930s, with a radio audience that reached millions every week. When he began criticizing the New Deal Roosevelt sent Joseph P. Kennedy and other prominent Irish Cathlics to try to tone him down. Ignoring them Coughlin began denouncing Roosevelt as a tool of Wall Street. He supported Huey Long until he was assassinated iun 1935, and then supported a third party in 1936. Thus Coughlin became a bitter opponent of the New Deal; his radio talks escalated in vehemence against Roosevelt, capitalists and Jewish conspirators. 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 and "an out and out demagogue." In 1940-41, Kennedy attacked the isolationism of Coughlin (and aviator Charles Lindbergh).

Coughlin in 1935 proclaimed, "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." He accused Roosevelt of "leaning toward international socialism or sovietism on the Spanish question." Coughlin founded the National Union for Social Justice, an organization with a strong following among nativists and opponents of the Federal Reserve, especially in the Midwest. As Kazin notes, Coughlinites saw Wall Street and Communism as twin faces of a secular Satan. They defended a "people" who cohered more through piety, economic frustration, and a common dread of powerful, modernizing enemies than through any class identity.

Coughlin and anyone else who desired to lead the discontented during the era of depression One of Father Coughlin's campaign slogans was: "Less care for internationalism and more concern for national prosperity" which went well with the isolationist movement in the United States. Coughlin's organization also appealed to Irish Catholics living in the cities. In 1936, Coughlin helped found a short-lived political party, the Union Party, which nominated William Lemke for President. Coughlin promised to retire if Lemke did not get 9 million votes, and when he received only 900,000 Coughlin stopped broadcasting briefly. He resumed in 1937.

Growing anti-Semitism

After 1936, however, Coughlin increasingly expressed sympathy for the fascist policies of Hitler and Mussolini, as an antidote to Bolshevism, though this was before World War II began. His CBS radio broadcasts also became overtly anti-Semitic. He blamed the Depression on an "international conspiracy of Jewish bankers", and also claimed that Jewish bankers were behind the Russian Revolution. On 27 November 1938, he said "There can be no doubt that the Russian Revolution ... was launched and fomented by distinctively Jewish influence."

He began publication of a newspaper, Social Justice, during this period, in which he printed anti-Semitic polemics such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The 5 December 1938 issue of Social Justice included an article by Coughlin which closely resembled a speech made by Joseph Goebbels on 13 September 1935 attacking Jews, atheists and communists, with some sections being copied verbatim by Coughlin from a English translation of the speech published in 1935.

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On Nov. 20, 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht, when Jews across Germany were attacked and killed, and Jewish businesses and homes burned, Coughlin blamed the Jewish victims, saying that "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted." After this speech, and as his programs became more anti-Semitic, some radio stations, including those in New York and Chicago, began refusing to air his speeches without pre-approved scripts. This made Coughlin a hero in Nazi Germany, where papers ran headlines like "America is Not Allowed to Hear the Truth." On December 18, 1938 two thousand of Coughlin's followers marched in New York protesting potential asylum law changes that would allow more Jews (including refugees from Hitler's oppression) into the US, chanting, "Send Jews back where they came from in leaky boats!" and "Wait until Hitler comes over here!" The protests continued for several months. Donald Warren, using information from the FBI and German government archives, has also argued that Coughlin received indirect funding from Nazi Germany during this period.

Additionally, after 1936, Coughlin began supporting an organization called the Christian Front, which claimed him as an inspiration. In January, 1940, the Christian Front was shut down when the FBI discovered the group was arming itself and "planning to murder Jews, communists and 'a dozen Congressmen'" [1] and eventually establish, in J. Edgar Hoover's words, "a dictatorship, similar to the Hitler dictatorship in Germany." Coughlin publicly stated, after the plot was discovered, that he still did not "disassociate himself from the movement," and though he was never linked directly to the plot, his reputation suffered. (New York Times, Jan 22, 1940)

Later career

According to Marcus' book, the priest's opposition to the repeal of a neutrality-oriented arms-embargo law triggered successful lobbying efforts to force him off the air. In October 1939, one month after the invasion of Poland, the Code Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) adopted new rules which placed "rigid limitations on the sale of radio time to spokesman of controversial public issues." Manuscripts were required to be submitted in advance. Radio stations were threatened with the loss of their licenses if they failed to comply. This ruling was clearly aimed at Coughlin due to his leadership in opposition to the growing American involvement in the Second World War. As a result, the September 23, 1939 issue of Social Justice stated that he had been forced from the air "...by those who control circumstances beyond my reach" (pps 173-177).

Coughlin later returned to broadcasting, however, though the popularity of his broadcasts fell rapidly as his radicalism grew, and, in 1942, church authorities ordered Coughlin to stop his radio broadcasts and return to his duties as a parish priest. He remained the pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower until retiring in 1966. Late in his career and life he refused numerous interview opportunities.

At its peak in the early 1930s, his radio show was phenomenally popular: his office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to be as much as one-third of the nation. Coughlin is often credited as one of the major demagogues of the 20th century for being able to influence politics through broadcasting, without actually holding a political office himself.

Sources

• Mary Christine Athans. A New Perspective on Father Charles E. Coughlin. Church History, Vol. 56, No. 2. (Jun., 1987), pp. 224-235.
• Mary Christine Athans, The Coughlin-Fahey Connection: Father Charles E. Coughlin, Father Denis Fahey, C.S. Sp., and Religious Anti-Semitism in the United States, 1938-1954. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1991.
• General Jewish Council. Father Coughlin: His "Facts" and Arguments. New York: General Jewish Council, 1939.
• Sheldon Marcus, Father Coughlin: The Tumultuous Life Of The Priest Of The Little Flower, Boston, 1972
• John J. O'Connor, "Review/Television; Father Coughlin, 'The Radio Priest,'" The New York Times, December 13, 1988.
• Sherrill, Robert, "American Demagogues," The New York Times, July 13, 1982.
• Donald Warren. Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin The Father of Hate Radio. New York: The Free Press, 1996

Other references

• Pirodsky, Richard (2003). The Demigod. PublishAmerica. ISBN 1591293863. This book is a fictionalized account of Coughlin's career.

External links

• Father Coughlin information at Religious Movements at UVA.
• Brief information on Coughlin, including an audio excerpt
• Find-A-Grave profile for Charles Coughlin
• List of Coughlin's radio addresses available in mp3 format
• Video of Father Coughlin attacking Roosevelt