Father Coughlin: Fascist Demagogue. New Series on the Radio Priest Who Is the Man, What Is His Program, How Did He Rise?
Socialist Appeal BUILD WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS Briggs Strikers Go Over The Top With a Resounding Union Victory The Carpenter Militant Action Brings Results SECOND EMALO2 WORLD WAR Official Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International Issued Twice Weekly VOL. III, NO. 41 TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1939 3c a Copy Aided by Big Business, America Number One Fascist Rose from Obscurity to Lead a Movement By JOSEPH HANSEN The Rise of the Radio Priest In the summer of 1926, an obscure Catholic priest began broadcasting over the radio in Detroit.
For three years he spoke steadily without gaining any following beyond a local one. His speeches were not particularly striking. He said nothing to distinguish himself as different from hundreds of others who performed for Then the 1929 crash ushered in the worst depression (WAA LEADERS PICKET LINE Something different did occur then. The obscure priest FAWN BEFORE GREETS FINK His name zoomed into the national spotlight.
He began broadening his activities like a business man MRS. ROOSEVELT MANNED SHIP who has succeeded in selling a huge issue of stock for a newly formed company.
No Money? Why, Go Arrival Precipitates In the lowest depths of the depression, he built himseli a million dollar shrine. He began publishing a sleek maga To School, Says the Fight Between zine that carried not a line of advertising, yet sold for only President Wife And Government a dime an editor day dream come true. He organized Company Reinstates a wide political movement. He added radio stations to his By NAT LEVINE Determined pickets of the network until today forty eight are broadcasting his (Special to the Socialist Appeal)
WASHINGTON, June sailors, firemen, licensed officFired Men; Contract West Coast organizations of the speeches at an estimated cost of 8, 000 each to an audi. It doesn always mean ors, and cooks and stewards Improves Conditions ence that may number millions.
Big Business tycoons count him an intimate. Many ter. Mrs. Franklin Delano greeted the arrival of the Roosevelt told the unemployed Sound port Coldbrook at the Puget (Special to the Socialist Appeal)
of Bellingham, Congressmen consider him the greatest political force outdelegates at the Right to DETROIT, June 15, 000 side of the White House. Fascists the world over hail Work Congress of the Workers Washington. It was the first of Alliance here today. It a ships designated for the Seattle Commission Briggs workers went over the him as among the chief of their dark number.
matter of more education. Orient run. Its arrival has pretop! The strike against Briggs The labor movement has denounced him repeatedly. she smilingly told the unem cipitated the long brewing con This is the Reverend Charles Coughlin.
Manufacturing is settled with ployed delegates who, one after another had grimly described test between the government a resounding victory for the Political Checkerboard Sunday afternoon the horrible Union of the Pacific over the commission and the Sailors United Automobile Workers The political program he has followed is as astounding cities and towns they had come basic issue: shall the Govern of America. The union is on as his rise from obscurity.
from ment le permitted to smash the march!
At first the radio priest urged his listeners to put their Attired in a dress of pastel unionism on the waterfronts by trust in President Herbert Hoover, the great engineer.
blue and wearing a black, establishing government conWith great unanimity and large trimmed straw hat. Mrs. trol over hiring of seamen, or enthusiasm five thousand As late as January 11, 1931, he declared that we have Roosevelt graciously posed for shall all seamen be shipped members of Briggs local 212, lost no faith whatsoever in President Hoover and his photographers with David Las from union hiring halls?
ser, Stalinist president of the Balked in an attempt to put cabinet.
their faces browned from Workers Alliance, as he fawn cargo aboard the Coldbrook Then he switched to the New Deal and supported it so ingly presented her with an at Bellingham because of the days of service on the picket lines, roared their approval of eloquently that he became one of the most influential honorary membership in the refusal of longshoremen and Workers Alliance.
teamsters to crash the picket the new agreement at Cass spokesmen for the Roosevelt Administration.
700That Mrs. Roosevelt would lines, the ship was shifted to Technical High School today. Roosevelt or Ruint was his slogan.
not have spoken to the Workers Seattle, Washington, where a The contract signed marks a Millions believed him and chose Roosevelt. Continued on Page 2)
stronger picket line awaited it.
great improvement over the The crew, supplied on the East previous agreement.
On November 11, 1934, shortly after the rise of Adolph Coast by the National Maritime Its provisions will more firmUnion through the fink hall, ly establish the local in the was declared finky by the Vari.
plants than ever before. Not ous West Coast organizations everything that the union gram for this organization himself. It has never elected participating in the picketing wanted was gained. That was him as its leader or constituted itself on democratic lines. To Greet Nat when the crew took the ship out Political discussion at its unit meetings is strictly forbid of Bellingham.
sions made in the agreement The inspiring demonstration Hail the King and Queen, Defenders of the by American authorities are not designed were to the advantage of the den. Coughlin is self appointed supreme dictator.
of solidarity with the sailors by Faith, Emperor and Empress of India and all merely to prevent some lunatic from throwing union and not the company.
In the 1936 presidential campaign he switched from the the teamsters, longshoremen other colonies, etc. etc. Hail them if you a bomb. No, they are primarily designed Therein lies the signal victory New Deal and supported William Lemke for president Genora Johnson and due to the fact that government have the soul of a slave or a flunkey. Hail against perfectly sane men and women the of local 212.
refugees and immigrants from the British When Lemke was beaten at the polls, the radio priest Bluff Fails in Other Party Leaders through any channels other forcing hiring them if you believe in cruelty and oppression.
Empire, their friends and sympathizers who retired from public life. But his retirement was only temThe story of the strike can be The five hundred million peoples of the Brit might peacefully demonstrate against these told in a few brief words. The Will Speak June 30 than union halls would be a ish Empire do not hail them. In India, in porary symbols of the British ruling class.
company tried to bluff the He came back on the air with a new twist to his political blow at all unions on the water. Ceylon, in the Near East, in South Africa, in The news seeps out that the police in various union out of its fundamental front parts of the country are making preventive bluffed. And it refused to temThe union wouldn be program against the Jews. revolution. prepare for mass meeting to greet the Thus the fight, carried on so Ireland, in the West Indies, those oppressed arrests of known enemies of British rule, so porize.
violence.
howing their anti war convention of the So valiantly by the Sailors Union by British democracy are struck power Now his movement is spreading from coast to coast.
cialist Workers Party will be of the Pacific, for almost a teeth and clenched fists, their irreconcilable that not a single untoward incident shall and effectiveness of the strike occur. Sean Russell, Irish Republican leader, such a force, backed by mass convinced the company that In every city unemployed youths hawk his magazine Social held at Irving Plaza, Friday. year, has finally born fruit, in determination to end once and for all the rule united struggle of the main of the British capitalists whom this gentleman was released by Federal authorities in Detroit power and militancy couldn Justice. He is conducting an essay contest with prizes The formal sessions of the sections of West Coast labor and his lady serve as traveling salesmen. only after a threat by Irish congressmen had be tricked, and it was questionamounting to 16, 000.
convention will begin Saturday against the regimentation of The refugees and immigrants in this country Many people consider him the only hope, the only way morning, July 1, also at Irving the seafarers, one of the key from the British Empire do not hail them threatened to boycott the reception for their able whether it could be beatPlaza, and will be held con points in the Government war. Nor do the millions of American workers who Majesties (if they were loyal to Ireland en. Result: Briggs stopped blufout of the depression. Many others consider him the most tinuously to July preparedness program understand what these gilded parasites rep.
struggle they boycott it anyway. But Rus fing and came to heel dangerous menace yet to appear on the American political Genora Johnson, famed leadsell was too well known; hundreds of lesser. The strike broke out original resent known opponents of British rule stay in jail ly over a long list of griev.
scene.
er of the Women Auxiliary in NOTICE Why do the Royal couple drive through lanes until their Majesties leave the country, the great strikes of the Flint ances. most important of very important meeting of soldiers who stand facing the people with auto workers, will make her Father Coughlin Promises Not all the fakery of mobilizing tens of which were the firing of fifteen first appearance fixed bayonets? Why are the roofs along their the New of all members of local New thousands of little school children, spending leading union men because of The magazine and the radio speeches, copies of which York platform of the Socialist York and the will route filled with squads of machine gunners tens of thousands of dollars stolen from the aggressive action in the plants.
Father Coughlin mails out free by the hundreds of thou Workers Party at the June 30 be held this Tuesday, June and sharp shooters? Why are armies of police unemployed for bunting and decorations, us The picket lines on the outside In and men surrounding them? Why, during addition, 13, 8:00 at Irving Plaza ing hundreds of thousands of troops and armed and the idle assembly lines on sands, are designed to appeal to those who have been meeting.
Hall. All members are intheir visit to the World Fair, are all the speakers list will include crushed by the depression the millions of unemployed. Dunne, outstanding labor leadmen, airplanes, destroyers, mine sweepers, the inside gave the company a structed to attend without buildings and grounds they visit emptied of can hide the simple fact: the millions who quick change of heart. When fail.
youth who see only a blank future, farmers facing ruiner of Minneapolis: Glen Trim Admission visitors, as if plague raged around the two?
card know the meaning of the rule of the British under these circumstances, Aronly.
These incredibly elaborate precautions the Empire, loathe and detest its dress horse rep. bitrator Dewey ordered twelve those who have no more hope in Roosevelt New Deal. ble of San Francisco: Reuben route they take has been studied for months resentatives.
Plaskett. Negro militant and of these unionists reinstated am for a just annual living wage, he declares. leader of the unemployed movehis eye was cocked on that am for labor right to organize. am for the cost of ment in New Jersey: George picket line the company ACceded.
living being maintained on an even keel; and am for Clarke from Detroit: and No than Gould, National Secretary Ask Union Shop preferring the sanctity of human rights to the sanctity of of the Young People Socialist With this victory under its League property with government chief concern for the poor.
belt union negotiators became Who could be against a program like that?
Max Shachtman, representmore insistent in their demand for the unton shop. Briggs loBut Father Coughlin was not the first man to standing the Political Committee of cal represented the overwhelmfor labor right to organize, nor the only one to point out the party will give the main address of the evening and James ing majority of the workers the high cost of living. Father Coughlin is not the first Cannon will preside AS employed in the Briggs plants.
chairman.
Why did the New York Times suppress two of the series Why?
There was no reason why all orator round out pungent and stinging phrases about Reports from all over the of articles by Luis Araquistain which it started to print?
Is it because the omitted two one in particular revealed to the union. Over 12, 000 signashould not be obliged to belong the sanctity of human rights.
country indicate an intense in Araquistain was Ambassador to France of the Loyalist the arch reactionary role played in Spain by Stalin?
Why should a program so commonplace as that create Government during the premiership of Largo Caballero, his Is it because Araquistain showed that the Stalinist clique tures had been obtained asking acted in Spain little different from a rang of imperialist close personal friend and co leader of the Spanish Socialist union shop such excitement and clamor, and out of an obscure priest Before the Party ConvenParty.
despots The conditions of the agreecreate a national political figure with apparently unlimited tion, a discussion article by ment, despite their tentative James Cannon, National Is it because Araquistain confirmed the story, already He was in a position, during the Civil War, to know all funds at his disposal?
the details of the crimes of Stalin and his gang in Spain. He told by Walter Krivitsky, about the pillaging of the Spanish character, come as near to Secretary of the Socialist Because that is not his real program, Workers Party, appears on remained silent about these crimes and about his own! gaining the union shop as gold reserves by the Kremlin autocrats?
when telling the story might have changed the whole situation Is it because the Stalinists or their democratic mobile industry. Only the exany ever obtained in the autopage of this issue.
Coughlin and the New Deal and perhaps the fate of the Spanish working class.
friends put the heat on the proud New York Times and per treme lateness of the producAt one time, if your memory goes back as far as Presi terest in the forthcoming conAfter the cruel defeat, he decided to speak, at least in suaded it to suppress the damaging articles, just as the Times tion season complicated by part. He wrote a series of articles for the North American deleted, a few months ago, the concluding paragraph from dent Roosevelt election campaign, the New Deal prom vention and a full attendance Newspaper Alliance (NANA. the newspaper feature syndiHomer Martin spurious and a Duranty Moscow dispatch about Stalin having killed more strikebreaking claims to repreised these very same things.
of delegates from all sections, cate controlled by the New York Times. The Times started Jews in Russia than Hitler did in Germany?
including newly. organized printing the articles on obscure back pages, even though Is it because the Times does not want to allow too bright sent a majority caused the And Father Coughlin backed the New Deal one hundred local to take less than its origbranches in the Pacific North their contents were sensational enough by any newspaper a light to fall upon the Kremlin democrat whom It has inal demand. The contract now per cent.
west, the deep South, and New standards. It printed three articles. Two of them it did not welcomed as an ally in its imperialistlo peace front. Continued on Page 2)
England.
print. provides that in the National (See page for details of Araquistata suppressed story. Continued on Paro. Carlo Hail the King and Queen. If You Believe in Cruelty and Oppression Hitler to power in Germany, he launched his organization. Mass Meeting Convention rights.
the by Why Did the New York Times Suppress Araquistain Story on Spain Gold?
for