Who Is Coughlin, What Is His Program, How Did He Rise?
BUILD WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS Official Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International Issued Twice Weekly VOL. III, NO. 42 FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1939 3c a Copy Aided by Big Business, America Number One Fascist Rose from Obscurity to Lead a Movement Fascists Wreck Labor Hall Breaking Through WRECKING GANG Thugs Stab Worker; SMASHES DEBS SWP Branches Hold SCHOOL OFFICE Anti Coughlin Rallies ENDS BUSY WEEK Democratic capitalism is doomed. Coughlin knows it. OF LOBBYING By JOSEPH HANSEN Father Coughlin: Fascist Demagogue INSTALLMENT II Capitalism is Bankrupt One of the surest signs that a social system is mortally sick is the existence of a large body of permanently unemployed workers. Greek civilization toppled amidst the frenzied despair of her unemployed. The broken pillars of the Coliseum in Rome still stand as a monument to the tyrants of the mighty Roman Empire who vainly attempted to trick the hordes of unemployed out of their hunger. During the death agony of feudalism, all Europe was wracked Raid Marks Stage in by wandering bands of desperate and starving unemployed.
American capitalism is mortally sick.
ODERIALI Rise of Fascist MoveKnife Teacher Who For ten years, since 1929, capitalism has cast off an ment in Huge Meeting Proincreasing number of people whom it can never employ.
Speaks Up against tected by Anti Faswhom it cannot even feed despite the fact that the land is Fascist hoodlums broke into Anti Semitic Filth cist Labor Guard bursting with food and crops are rotting on the ground.
the Debs Labor School, 114 Each year an estimated 500, 000 youth reach employable West 14 Street, New York City, The urgent necessity of mo Augmented by a detachment age and are thrown into the ever swelling ranks of the and wrecked the entire office, bilizing the labor movement of the Anti Fascist Labor Deunemployed. These hungry, ill clothed Americans number sometime after midnight Sat against the Coughlin Fascists fense Guard and actively as urday.
now almost 17, 000, 000 a colossal figure!
was brought home to New anxious to fight against the fassisted by numerous workers It was the first recorded in York workers on Saturday cist gangs of New York, the At first they listened to the promises of Roosevelt New Deal and these promises sounded good. He was going stance of fascist gangsters when the Coughlinites invaded Bronx Branch of the Socialist to feed them, clothe them, give them jobs and security.
INDEPENDENT breaking into and destroying a the Union Square area, tradi Workers Party successfully working class headquarters in tional labor and Jewish neigh demonstrated in the Fordham Now they know that he lied. Now they know that he WORKING CLASS the United States, and marks a borhood, shouted their anti major stronghold of the CoughRoad District of the Bronx, a cheated them, that he had nothing to give them but inACTION stage in the speedy rise of the Semitie slogans and stabbed a lin Fascist gangs.
creased misery fascist movement.
protesting school teacher. Despite police interference The unemployed stand for the moment, uncertain what As they entered the building.
road to take next. They are starving in the richest country the fascists ripped down the la teacher at New Utrecht High large contingent of Coughlin Samuel Applebaum, a French and organized heckling from a in the world. Warehouses are crammed to the roof with LAST bor school sign in front of the School, was stabbed, necessitat Fascists, led in their disruption goods. Billions in gold lie idle in the banks. Factory gates door, cracked open the lock on ing seven stitches close the by students from nearby Fordthe school door, and proceeded against insults levelled at Jews directing them from a parked wound, when he spoke up ham University, and by a are shut. Machines are silent. Crops are plowed under.
frocked Catholic priest who sat Using the LIE that private industry will provide jobs, to destroy everything in sight. by Coughlinites selling Social Roosevelt slash relief program hurls fresh million after Typewriters were broken Justice on Fourteenth Street, car, the anti fascists were able to stage a huge outdoor mass million of Americans into the streets. There they may eat apart, their parts strewn about Party Answers Fascists meeting on the corner of Valenthe room. Plush chairs were garbage if they can find any left in the garbage pailsAs soon as the news was tine Avenue and Fordham slashed to bits whle the rest of brought to the nearby Socialist Road. At least 1, 000 were in while they hunt for a job in private industry.
the furniture was broken be Workers Party headquarters at the meeting.
All about them they see incalculable wealth monopolized yond repair. The posters dec 116 University Place, party and Standing only a few paces and enjoyed by a miserable handful of parasitic stockyouth members speedily mobil. apart from Coughlin Social 703 TCC orating the walls were torn red in a counter demonstration Justice hawkers. squads holders.
Carlo down. All the files and records against the Coughlinites. They Socialist Appeal salesmen sold The unemployed go hungry.
that were kept in the office were joined by hundreds of more than a hundred copies of They are bewildered, but one basic truth they do underwere ripped up and destroyed workers on Fourteenth Street. the anti fascist paper in less It is believed that some of the The Coughlinites quickly left than an hour and a half stand: This situation is intolerable.
more valuable records are still the neighborhood, while Coughlinites at Bay They are ready for action. No more postcards to Conin the hands of the fascists. spokesmen set up a platform Although the organized gress! Already they feel in their minds the thing that is The wrecking gang, it is be and addressed the workers on heckling of the Coughlinites lieved, belonged to the Cough the necessity uniting to build drowned out several speakers, coming. revolution. three square meals a day.
lin organization which earlier workers Defense Guards the mass meeting continued for clothing. a decent home. plenty for all.
the same day for the first time against the fascist menace.
well over an hour in defiance invaded the Union Square sec Several persons who had of the fascist provocations.
tion and stabbed a Jewish joined in the anti Coughlin Hundreds of workers saw for Big Business knows it. Roosevelt knows it.
school teacher.
Everybody knows it but that wooden skull minority Compelled to leave the neigh istive of the action of the so position of the Socialist Work composed of John Lewis, William Green, Earl Browborhood by the hundreds of an cialist Workers Party that they ers Party to the fascist gangs.
Set Record for Visti fascists who confronted them, donated money so that Socialist The Coughlinite hooligans were der, an idiot or two, and a handful of old maids of both the fascists returned, at night. Appeals could be distributed held at bay by the Labor Desexes who were left over from the last century. This iting Congressmen LAN EDITORIAL it is believed, to wreak their free to interested workers. Ov fense Guard while speaker after minority still believes that democratic capitalism will con. and Inaction vengeance on the first laborer 100 Appeals were sold here. speaker shot stern barbs at the Seven months ago, in November, 3, 350, 000 men and women headquarters they found. Meanwhile two mobilizations fascists. The effective protectinue indefinitely punch its meal ticket!
were employed on the rolls.
The Debs Labor School is op of forces were success tive ring about the platform In America apt students have watched the rise to power (Special to the Socialist Appeal)
At that time the New York Times authoritative business ac erated by the Socialist Party. fully challenging Coughlinite stopped the Coughlinites from of Mussolini and Hitler. They understand that only one WASHINGTON tivity index stood at 94. Today that index stands at 86.
Sponsored road is left open to capitalism that has become sour and by the Stalinist controlled And today the Roosevelt Administration has cut down the turned on the water faucets and and 34th St. corner of Macy they clearly outnumbered the the entire floor was flooded. Department Store. Over 100 organized anti fascists.
rotten with old age. In Italy Mussolini called it fascism. Workers Alliance, the Right rolls to 2, 500, 000 To Work Congress ended its While business activity and jobs lell by nearly one tenth. Firemen discovered the wreck copies of the Socialist Appeal It was learned from workers In Germany Hitles called it Nazism. We do not yet know sessions here June 10, after one Roosevelt was firing 850, 000 workers on the pretext that age after an alarm had been were sold at Macy and anoth stationed among the Coughlin what name a similar movement in America might bear. week with the feeling. as ex there would be jobs waiting for them in private industry. turned in by an unidentified er sixty at Times Square in ite hecklers that the fascists pressed in the Daily Worker of He lied. Those workers, fired from are roaming the person.
short order. The Socialist Ap attempted at various times Perhaps in America it will be called Social Justice.
Sunday June 11 by George Mor streets looking for nog existent jobs, eating if at all on the mispeal salesmen, shouting anti throughout the meeting to orWhat Is Fascism?
ris, that The Job Congress is erable hand outs of local home relief.
The second or James fascist slogans, were set upon ganize a rush to the speaker the greatest mass lobbying acFascism is a combination of two things.
But that isn the worst of it. On April 27 Roosevelt sent a Cannon discussion articles several times at 34th Street by stand. That they were frus tion that has ever been carried message on relief to Congress, recommending an average of on problems confronting the Coughlin thugs, but the sym trated speaks well for the adeFirst, it is a wide mass movement of farmers and small through.
2, 000, 000 on rolls during the fiscal year which begin party convention appathetic crowds rushed to the quato protection afforded the business men who face bankruptcy, of youth denied a That the Workers Alliance July That means another 500, 000 are to be thrown off the pears on page of this issue.
defense of the anti fascists meeting by the Labor Guard.
met in Washington not to fash 11 Roosevelt has his way.
each time.
Parade Follows Meeting future under capitalism, of sections of the unemployed.
ion a fighting program to meet! What are you unemployed and workers going to do After the meeting disbanded, All these layers of the oppressed who are seeking desper the needs of the unemployed about it?
the anti fascist workers staged a parade along Fordham Road, ately to put their hands on the surrounding plenty become but to curry favor from the then went to the Bronx headhypnotized by the silver plated promises of a demagogue New Deal is best expressed by way. Flve thousand of them closed up projects in a oneHerbert Benjamin, secretary day demonstration and, in trucks provided by General Drivers quarters of the Socialist Workwho regiments them into blindly obedient shock troops.
treasurer of the who Local 544 independent truck owners section, they descended ers Party. Thousands of work Secondly, it is financed and controlled by the very capi stated that Few actions of the upon the various relief authorities and presented their militant ers along the route of march heard the band of over a huntalists who above all are anxious to keep the revolutionary unemployed have been so fruit demands. In a word, they demanded a job and a decent living violence of the masses from turning against them. In ful as this Congress. think for every worker.
Call for Organization of Revolutionary with Anti Semitism. Build that at no time have so many If the stirring demonstration in the Twin Cities were repeated America the DuPonts, the Morgans, the Rockefellers. Congressmen been visited. in only twenty other cities, ears now deaf in Washington would Socialist Party in Ireland at Demonstration the Labor Defense Guards.
Far from preparing the na be impelled to hear. Fighting demonstrations in the streets are the Sixty Families.
tion unemployed and relief the only road to jobs, the only language that the RooseAt the headquarters of the To the rank and file followers of fascism, at first it workers for militant struggle velt War Deal can be made to understand.
the Appeal) two militant Italian seems a genuine revolutionary way out of their misery.
That is the concrete task now facing the progressives in the gusted with the Popular Front people joined in the parade. Bronx branch, announced that LONDON, Thoroughlycal dis united front offer with the ept. workers joined the party.
They discover the truth too late.
ers Alliance Washington con unemployed and trade unton movement everywhere to branjze ism and bureaucracy of the and many times that number the successful demonstration The capitalists provide the money. The dictator provides ing Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt modest a scale, demonstrations should be organized wherever stooge outfit composed mainly a small hooligan element, led of the workers against the fasthe powerful slogans, the stirring names, the demagogic an honorary membership after they are at all possible have come rokersthe won that they of Irishmen living in England by the Stalinists, tried to dis. cists. Another workers action program, the organization, the lieutenants, and the oratory. Continued on Page 2) are ready to lead these workers in the fight against starvation.
Father Coughlin Real Program away and founded The Friends after the audience manifested planned for the immediate fuof the Irish Republic. Especial. its hostility.
ly infuriated with the call of ture. Tribute From the Connolly Club for unity resolution attacking the exmovement in the United States. But now he has come out An Enemy with De Valera, the members ploters of Ireland and calling Brooklyn Businessman of The Friends of the Irish Republic have organized on a pro tionary Socialist Party in Ire: Gives Lesson public and private utterances. It is only necessary to read The only sections of the gram clearly against British land was read and adopted In Americanism his speeches and his magazine Social Justice with a little Left who can consistently imperialism and Stalinismunanimously by the audience, care to discover Father Coughlin REAL program. Reporters, American Embassy Officials oppose the Government Though the program of the The audience then observed a organization, which is now minute silence in commemor had an excellent example of The workers of Boro Park Only one month before he launched the National Union Unable to Find any Trace of Her plan for conscription) are three months old, indicates conation of the martyrs of Ire Americanism at work last for Social Justice he said to Paul Weber of Hearst Interthe Trotskyists, who regard siderable unclarity on some land great revolutionary Friday night when the Socialist national News Service (Detroit Times, October 10, 1934. all wars as capitalist plots, points, it appears to be turning struggle in 1916 which was fol Work By NAT LEVINE The charge was an after am devoted to capitalism.
and the Lansburyites, who towards a consistently revolu lowed by resounding cheers. were holding their custom The latest chapter in the thought, merely following the would not fight on any provtionary position under the lead. The demonstration, led by a ary open air meeting at 46th Among his sixteen points for Social Justice he calls for staged drama of the Rob already established fact, for ership of chairman Murphy band in defiance of police or st. and 13th Avenue in Brookocation.
inson Rubens case unfolded in which three American Stalinthe preservation of private property.
and secretary McDermott.
der, then marched down Edge lyn.
Devotion to capitalism and preservation of private Mrs. Ruth Marie Rubens, wife Federal Court in New York, Moscow court last week when ists were recently convicted in (From the Evening Stanware Road where a meeting The meeting was repeatedly On May 14, the Friends held was held to collect funds and interrupted and heckled by property this is the holy Bible of fascism.
of the missing Russian secret that Rubens supervised a passdard. Lord Beaverbrook a parade from Hammersmith sell literature paper, April 27, 1939. Raphael Raymond, executive agent, Rubens, pleaded port forging ring. Rubens was On March 13, 1938, in a broadcast over his network, Bridge to Hyde Park in com Small as these militants are secretary of the Boro Park guilty to a charge of having il recently identified by Walter memoration of the execution of in numbers today, they are Chamber of Commerce and ed.
Coughlin urged the establishment in the United States of legally entered the Soviet Un Krivitsky, former head of the Join the Socialist James Connolly by the British showing fine activity and are stor of the Boro Park Herald.
a corporate state, which is the gilded way of describing ion on a false American pass Soviet Intelligence service in imperialists. Though the Con rapidly becoming known. New This patriot demanded that the (Continued on Page 2)
port. Continued on Page 4)
Workers Party nolly Club had turned down a members are joining. Continued on Paro 3)
Twin City Workers Showed the Way to Fight Cuts com past week the workers of Minneapolis and St.
Paul showed the Irish Revolutionists Break With Stalinism, Form Club Father Coughlin was consciously plotting to buid a fascist Freeing of Mrs. Rubens more in the open. He has had time to make slips in his Opens New Chapter in Case