Who Is Coughlin, What Is His Program, How Did He Rise?
Socialist Appeal BUILD WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS 107 Administration Bill Wrecking Jammed Through House Our Own Kind of Defense Fascists Attack Labor Meeting Roll Call Shows All Factions For Slash DEFENSE GUARD been suppressed in blood for years, as the sole barrici Lesson victory for communism in China. Social Justice, De To the When Mussolini invaded Ethiopia (a Christian nation Fascists Ethiopians and justifying Mussolini criminal war And Labor HAGUEISK THE UNION Official Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International Issued Twice Weekly VOL. III, NO. 44 FRIDAY, JUNE 23. 1939 3c a Copy Aided by Big Business, America Number One Fascist Rose from Obscurity to Lead a Movement By JOSEPH HANSEN INSTALLMENT IV In an editorial in the January 2, 1939, issue of Social Justice Father Coughlin attacked a proposal that the Red Cross ship wheat for distribution to starving victims of the civil war in Spain, both Loyalists and Fascists.
He gave as his reason that since there was greater neert in the territory then held by the Loyalists, most of the wheat would go to feed starving Loyalists.
hen hundred thousand began pouring into France, fleeing from the advance of fascist warlord Franco after being betrayed Loyalist army leaders who had been put into power and supported by Stalin Communist Party and the Social Democrats, Coughlin cynically declared. The hordes clamoring for escape at the border are not Spaniards. Thousands upon thousands are Russian reds. Social Justice, February 13, 1939. Transport Workers Attending Outdoor Rally Coughlin approved Hitler seizure of Austria.
Repulse Fascists in Street Battle Thugs Coughlin approved Hitler seizure of the Sudetenland.
Hurl Bottles at Speakers Coughlin approved Hitler seizure of Czechoslovakia.
Coughlin approved Hitler seizure of Memel.
Woodburn Bill Puts Coughlin approves Hitler bristling war threats. The first street battle between organized labor and the Relief Methods Back In his broadcast of March 24, 1935, Coughlin declared: Coughlin fascist gangs in New York City took place Friday Today the outposts of Germany are the frontiers of our night, June 16, at 138 Street and Willis Avenue in the Bronx To Days of Hoover civilisation.
when 5, 000 workers, most of them members of the TransWhen the work week was lengthened arbitrarily by port Workers Union, hurled back a fascist attempt to break The Roosevelt. Woodrum decree in France, Father Coughlin hailed the act. up an orderly workers meeting. The outdoor rally, called by wrecking Bill was In the Far East Coughlin supports Japan and describes the South Bronx Section of this militaristic dictatorship where all civil liberties have the American Labor Party.
passed by the House of Rephad received the endorsement resentatives after midnight East. The of Michael Quill, president of Friday, less than 48 hours af victory of China, he assures the reader, would mean the Transport Workers ter it was brought in. SpeakUnion.
er Bankhead and New Deal cember 19, 1938. See also the issues of December 26, 1938 Acting on the initiative of Majority Leader Rayburn and March 6, 1939. Quill, a large contingent of joined with Woodrum, chairworkers turned out for the ral ly. By eight o clock in the eveman of the appropriations incidentally) Coughlin broadcast a speech attacking the ning, the time set for the meetsub committee which drafted ing, the corner of 138th Street Ithe bill, in jamming it through and willis Avenue was occuSeries of Lectures on Social Justice, April 1936, by Rev.
pied by over 1, 000 of the transin record time.
Charles Coughlin, pp. 17 19. AN EDITORIAL port workers.
The extraordinary size of Coughlin applauded Mussolini seizure of Albania, New York subway work was in progress, the Christian While the workers meeting the majority for the measure, calling it a rescue, for the benefit of its million in which has been accurately deers members of the Trans Front, a fascist gang, held two scribed as putting relief methhabitants.
ods back to the days of Hoover, Why is Father Coughlin so enthusiastic about the for port Workers Union have small meetings of its own down means that not only did Roosejust given an instructive les the street. The Christian Front cign fascists?
velt Administration leaders of the back the bill but they also used Let it be understood once and for all, that Father son to the Coughlinite fas strong arm section Coughlin is not an agent of the European dictators. Far cists and. to the labor Coughlin movement.
Unable to attract numbers to prevent a sizeable their control of pale to Confrom it. He is their disciple and admirer. But on the day movement at large.
its meeting the fascists ingressmen from recording them that war breaks out between the United States and any one The fascist hoodlums who structed their followers to disselves against the bill.
Roosevelt Named Figure of these nations which Coughlin now lauds, he will turn have been concentrating in band and march on the workThe most important proviagainst that nation as savagely as a cannibal on his aged the South Bronx section of ers rally. Arriving at the meeting. the fascists took up posision in the bill, that naming the grandfather.
New York were given a tell tions across the street, heckling amount to be expended for was the figure of What Coughlin desires is that the methods and the ing lesson in the sweeping Quill, who was on the platform 477. 000. 000 named by Presiideology of these fascist plunderers siek deeply into the power of the working class By this time the meeting had swelled to 5, 000 workers.
dent Roosevelt in his relief minds of his followers when it is organised, militant, In answer to the fascist provmessage to Congress of April Coughlin wants to organize a state similar to the Nazi determined.
ocation, Quill denounced the 27. Not even the most reaction11 When the Coughlinites cused them of acting as an or Coughlinites as scabs and acand the fascist corporate state, and the REAL masters ary Congressman found any quarrel with the president of that corporate state, the masters to whom he swears sought to disrupt and break ganized body to smash the figure, for it represented a slash of over one third from the devotion and whose interests he represents, are America up the meeting called by the Transport Workers Union. Des 2, 250, 000, 000 expended for parasitic SIXTY FAMILIES.
local branch of the American perate at the success of the during the previous The Fascists Hail Coughlin Labor Party, addressed by the ites started to throw bottles at fiscal year.
The latest acts in the swiftlyUnder the Roosevelt Wood When the Socialist Workers Party led 50, 000 demon leader of the Transport Quill. One of the bottles hit at Claim that He Repre unfolding pre war crisis were Union, Michael woman in the audience, felling Leadership Doomed rum Biu, rolls will straters in protest against the February 20 meeting of the Quillher. Aroused by the fascist ataverage 2, 000, 000 during the Tanker Strike by tack, groups of workers surged sents Majority Shown being played this week in two settings. in Tientain and in fiscal year which begins July When they sought, by prov. toward the Coughlinite hooli To Be a Fake Moscow. In the wings sat Hit 18, 000 members of the Bund, meeting under protection of Hot Oil Policy In line with the recommenler, waiting his turn to come dations Roosevelt had sent to the biggest concentration of police in New York history, cations and violence, to gans. The police, who had been on, and the scene changers Congress, administrawere heiling Fuehrer Fritz Kuhn, Fuehrer Hitler, and drive labor off the streets, to unable to intervene, the siture (Special to the Socialist Appeal) were ready to bring Slovakia The crisis that has been rav tion officials have been slashIl Duce Mussolini. But biggest ovation of the evening. leprive a labor organization tion having by that time been FLINT, Mich. Martin Gen and the Polish border into the aging the National Maritime ing the job rolls, from the Motors strike has center of the stage for the next Union under the leadership of 3, 350, 000 who were employed in next only that accorded La Guardia police, was the lof its right to free speech. put under control by the workeral ers, who dispersed the fascist proved a complete dud.
episode.
ovation given Father Coughlin.
The thousands of transport provocateurs.
a Stalinist wrecking crew head. November, 1938 on the eve of Production has remained unIn Tientsin the Japanese hted by Joe Curran, came to a the election to the present Significant that the German American Bund followers workers, and their brothers in Order thus restored, jackers held a gun in the ribs head with the official termina 2, 500, 000, a drop of 850, 000 jobs.
of Hitler should be so enthusiastic over Coughlin!
Impaired in Chevrolet, in Fish of the British racketeers. The tion of the tanker strike at An additional 500, 000 would be other trades and industries meeting continued until eleven er Body and in the foun Japanese blockade of the midnight, June 13. The strike, fired under the Roosevelt An Associated Press dispatch from Rome on January who gathered about the plat arm men who attempted to dry at Saginaw. No more men French and British concessions begun on April 17 as a result Woodrum Bill.
Still Others to Go 17, 1939, stated that the radio priest received fascist form, gave them a lesson that pick off workers on their way are absent from their jobs than at Tientsin and the internation of rank and file pressure for usual number accounted al area at Amoy continued. militant action, was suffocated If the bill is adopted by the praise and thanks today from the Regime Fascista, the they needed badly and they home from the rally were ably the handled by alert mem for by illness or other reasons. growing bolder and more rigid in a flood of hot oll which Senate in its present form, acbers.
newspaper that has led attacks on the Vatican in the dis will not soon forget. Continued on Page Continued on Page Continued on Page 3) tually more than a half million pute over the Italian anti Semitic measures.
That was Lesson No.
additional to those indicated above will be fired, for it inIn a Berlin dispatch dated November 27, 1938, Otto But there is also a lesson cludes a provision discharging Tolischus reports in the New York Times: for the labor movement in by October workers under 45 years of age who have The German hero in America for the moment is the general.
worked eighteen months or Rev. Charles Coughlin because of his radio speech The assembled Transport representing National Socialism (Nazism) as a defensive Workers, who have already more. These are eligible to The 850, 000 workers who have already been fired And the amount designated by Roosevelt is the amount now return to rolls after front against Bolshevism.
fixed by the Roosevelt Woodrum Starvation Bill, an amount The acknowledged advocates of fascism in America are given more than one example since November, the 500, 000 others who are slated to be dropped which simply wrecks the reducing the rolls to 1, 350, 000 having no more standing then sixty days. if re certified, but not less enthusiastic.
of their spirit of labor soli to bring down the rolls to the two million limit provided by the less jobs than in November than millions of others awai George Deatherage, leader of the Knights of the darity, did not cringe, or of Representatives, the 500, 000 or more others who are to be wrecking bin. But the most important thing wrong with it is the likelihood stay off the rolls perWhite Camellia, who insists that fascism as a movement crawl, or beg or petition.
fired arbitrarily because they have been on the rolls for amount it provides for jobs. And for that Roosevelt is respon. manently.
began in America with the Ku Klux Klan long before it They defended their lead eighteen months all these, and the millions of unemployed sible, for HE NAMED THAT FIGURE.
The only controversy in the was copied by the Nazis, declares: ers; they defended their plat workers who bitterly need jobs must ask themselves: That means that you can even begin to fight for jobs, you House of Representatives dur.
He is not the leader we are looking for, but America form; they defended their WHOIS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SLASHING OF THE can begin to fight against the cuts, unless you are ing discussion of the bill came ready to CENTER YOUR FIRE ON ROOSEVELT. The Repub on the various restrictive proshowdown comes, Father Coughlin will have behind him hard won rights.
has produced no greater voice and when the time for the meeting; they defended their You can fight back unless you know where the blows are lican Tories and Garner Democrats. the whole reactionary visions directing administration coming from. You can save your jobs, or win them back, or caboodle in Washington, are already hated and distrusted by the of the funds by the and us, ten million mobilized followers. Saturday Eve.
ning Post, May 27, 1939. And they did it themselves. set Sobs, unless you know who is leading the forces of reaction workers, employed and unemployed. These reactionaries couta These restrictive provisions William Dudley Pelley, Fuehr of the Silver Shirts. The thousands of workers he is.
against you. You can lick the enemy, unless you know where never get away with putting over these cuts they didn have the 18 months limitation on a. job, and abrogation of another mysteriously financed Christian who openly around the platiorm were a It not your fault if you haven a clear idea of who the ene To denounce the Tory Republicans and Garner Demo: payment to skilled workers of proclaims his desire to Hitlerize the United States, de DEFENSE GUARD against my is. The daily press the radio, all kinds of demagogues and crats is not enough. It is not enough to run pleket lines against the prevailing wage in the cralt fakers are deliberately trying to confuse you, so that you won Republican headquarters. When the workers limit them were the most important met clared in the November 14, 1938, issue of his magazine. the fascist gangsters.
be able to fight back. But either you get clear on who you are selves to such actions, the reactionaries laugh up their sleeves, with some objections from Liberation: Defense Guard was need going to have to fight if you are to save yourselves from starva for they know that SUCH ACTIONS WON STOP THE CUT some New Dealers, but their obThis past week the aggressive Father Coughlin wented for that meeting. It was tion, or you go down into the brendlines and the garbage dumps. TING DRIVE.
on the air over a New York radio station and delivered there. It WORKED.
jections were for the record Here are the facts: Picket lines around Congress, plcket lines around the White so that they could go back to what amounted to the prize Silver Shirt speech of the year.
It is needed nowadays ev by none other than PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT HIMSELF. He and slogans aimed against Roosevelt where to the banners sortir labor constituencies relatih cuts that the some face. How little resishe is not difficult to understand the brotherly love between erywhere. Union men, organ aid it in his relief budget messaxe to Congress on April 27, 1938. road, the only road, to successful fight for jobs. Au tance they put up is indicated the openly acknowledged fascists and the radio priest ize your GUARD of defense during the year beginning July at 51, 477, 000, 000 more than that at the head of the relief slashers stands President Roose bill went through who has risen so rapidly from obscurity against FASCISM.
one third slash from the previous year figure of 2, 250, 000, 000. velt. Continued om Page 3)
Martin PRE WAR CRISIS in Folds Up EASTERN SCENE Strike End the Who Is Responsible for the Cuts?