Gord's Notebook : Father Coughlin Father of American Hate-Radio

Update: 12:27 PM ,June 30, 2009

Father Coughlin (1891-1979) Grandfather of Hate Radio In America- Propagandists Populist & anti-Semite & Admirer of both Henry Ford a rabid anti-semite & Hitler.

Radio personality Father Coughlin & Rush Limbaugh-

"Must the entire world go to war for 600,000 Jews in Germany who are neither American, nor French, nor English citizens, but citizens of Germany?"

"If Jews persist in supporting communism directly or indirectly, that will be regrettable. By their failure to use the press, the radio and the banking house, where they stand so prominently, to fight communism as vigorously as they Nazism, the Jews invite the charge of being supporters of communism."

"From European entanglements, from Nazism, communism and their future wars, America must stand aloof. Keep America safe for Americans and the Stars and Stripes the defender of God."

"When we get through with the Jews in America, they’ll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing."

"Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted."

Above Quotes by Father Coughlin -( antisemitism)

INCITING GENOCIDE AGAINST THE ARMENIANS AND THE JEWS

In the industrial world, Nazi Germany pioneered the use of newspapers and radio broadcasts to promote genocide. Although the actual mass murder of the Jewish people was never directly mentioned in official German government propaganda, Joseph Goebbels prepared the way by instructing German editors to abandon every last shred of "bourgeois sentimental attitudes" towards Jews and to impress on the public that the destruction of the Jews would not be a loss to mankind, but just as useful to society as capital punishment for criminals. It was left to a private individual, Julius Streicher, an old Nazi and one-time Gauleiter of Franconia, to issue public calls for the murder of the Jewish people in his weekly, Der St¸rmer. Streicher labeled Jews as germs and pests, not human beings, evil doers, as disseminators of diseases who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind. As the Judgement of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg reminds us,

...it was not only in Germany that this defendant advocated his doctrines. As early as 1938 he began to call for the annihilation of the Jewish race . . . extermination "root and branch" was preached . . . Other articles urged that only when world Jewry had been annihilated would the Jewish problem have been solved . . . . (p.132)

Quote from: "RADIO PROPAGANDA AND GENOCIDE" MIGS Occasional Paper Prof. Frank Chalk, November 1999/Presented in an earlier form to the Conference on "Synergy in Early Warning," Centre for Refugee Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario 16 March 1997.

Speech on radio in 1939 by Father Coughlin

Coughlin a fanatical anti-semite accuses Jews of erroneously claiming persecution in Germany by the Nazis.
He tells the story of An American Rabbi who went to Henry Ford to try to get Ford to accept Jewish immigrants or refugees from Nazi Germany. This Rabbi according to Coughlin claimed Henry Ford backed the Rabbis cause so Ford issued a statement to prove he did not support the claims that the Jews made about persecution in Nazi Germany.

The use of the radio & other media to spread propaganda & messages of hate & bigotry using misinformation, exaggeration, lies & claims of a national crisis ii the United States did not originate with Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage or Glenn Beck or Lou Dobbs but can be traced back to the tirades against liberals, socialists & Jews by the virulent anti-semite catholic priest Father Coughlin in the 1930s.Father Coughlin's anti-semitism to a great extent was just an expression of the Catholic Church's & the Vatican's historical anti-semitism which it had promulgated for for centuries befor the rise of the Nazis & Adolph Hitler. Anti-semitism had been embedded in the the Catholic Church & Christianity from its very beginning. The New testament & St. Paul called the Jewish synagogue the "Synagogue of Satan" & claimed the Jews were guilty for the Crucifixtion of Jesus ( Deicide) and that by rejecting Jesus as the Messiah the Jews in effect making themselves the eney of Jesus & God & Christianity and so were acting on behalf of Satan to destroy the Christian church.

"The Grandfather of Hate Radio" By Gordonskene at Crooks and Liars, Friday Feb 20, 2009

A lot has been said lately about the state of talk radio - the overwhelming presence of hate, lies, threats and hysteria. Everyone thinks its a phenomenon of the past twenty years. Sadly, no.

Hate radio has its roots back to the beginnings of radio. Although not the only one who used the airwaves to preach hate, fear and prejudice, Father Charles Coughlin was probably the most famous practitioner of extreme right wing sentiment. At his peak, his one hour "sermons" had an audience of several million and were a Sunday night staple on CBS Radio at first, and later NBC before his decline and eventual demise.

Coughlin established the template for what is the basis of Hate radio today. Although to be fair,Coughlin was articulate and had style - something todays practitioners have no clue how to use.

Father Coughlin was using incendiary & inflammatory language on his radio show in the 1930s . He preached against the Jewish people claiming there was a Jewish international conspiracy which had to be fought . He therefore believed that Hitler & the Nazis were on the right track in exposing the Jewish people & in expelling them from Germany or other countries.He was also influenced & backed by industrialist Henry Ford who was a nororious anti-semite who used his newspaper The Dearborn Press to promote the Anti-Semitic forgery "The protocols of The Elders of Zion".

Coughlin - Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism/Father Charles Edward Coughlin (1891-1971) By Richard Sanders, Editor, Press for Conversion!

Father Coughlin, “the Father of Hate Radio,” was born in Hamilton, Ontario. This rabidly right-wing, Catholic priest started with a weekly broadcast on WJR, Detroit’s “Good Will” station. CBS broadcast it nationwide in 1930 and 1931. He started his own radio network that grew to 30 stations. John Spivak, estimated that Coughlin’s broadcasts reached 40 million, said: “Only the President…had a bigger audience… The President spoke only on special occasions, the priest every Sunday…. To me, he was the most dangerous divisive influence in the country” (A Man in His Time, 1967).

Coughlin originally supported FDR, but turned against him in 1934 and created a political party, the National Union of Social Justice. Former Louisiana Governor, Huey Long was supposed to be their candidate, but he was assassinated in 1935. Journalist George Seldes said Long was America’s “first notable Fascist leader,...a very smart demagogue, [who] once said, ‘Sure we’ll have Fascism here, but it will come as an anti-Fascism movement.’” In the late 1930s, Coughlin called for FDR’s impeachment because he was “leaning toward international socialism or sovietism.”

Coughlin’s radio sermons praised Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The Nazi press praised Coughlin as “America’s most powerful radio commentator.” He ranted against Jews, the “Christ-killers and Christ-rejecters.” When a Boston Globe reporter asked him for proof that communists were influencing FDR, Father Coughlin belted the journalist in the face.

Coughlin's weekly paper, Social Justice, reached one million. It was sold in 2,000 churches. In 1938, it reprinted the anti-Semitic forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

... we do know that Coughlin really was allied with the openly-Nazi German-American Bund. By 1939, Coughlin had inspired and was directing a nation-wide, fascist network, the Christian Front, which John Spivak described as “street-fighting toughs.” Roy Carlson, who infiltrated and exposed U.S. fascist groups said:

"Like Hitler’s Brownshirts, the Christian Front was ostensibly organized to combat the ‘rising tide of Communism.’ All Jews,... liberals, New Dealers and labor organizations were called Communist; and since the Communist Revolution in America was scheduled to take place ‘any day now,’ the Christian Front–always under Coughlin’s inspiration and guidance—shouted that a private army was the only means to ‘save America.’ Coughlin filled the pages of Social Justice with Hitler’s sewer-spawned lies. He made direct use of Goebbels’ speeches, quoting the Nazi almost word-for-word.... He denounced the ‘poppycock of Democracy’ and branded Democracy as a version of Communism” (Under Cover, 1943).

“What He Has Done Is Sickening to Contemplate”: Catholic Liberal John Ryan Denounces Father Charles Coughlin by John Ryan at History Matters

Father Charles Coughlin and the New Deal :Anti-Semitism from the Golden Hour of the Little Flower by © Michael Streich Apr 27, 2009 at Modern History Suite 101.com

In the 1930s, Father Charles E. Coughlin would emerge as one of the most powerful radio personalities in an industry that was only slowing coming into its own. Coughlin’s Sunday “Hour of Power” broadcasts mixed religious themes with political issues, and were eventually used to convey such virulently anti-Semitic sermons that Coughlin has been called the “father of hate radio.” At his height, both Catholics and Protestants comprised over forty million weekly listeners.
Radio League of the Little Flower

Coughlin’s “Golden Hour of the Little Flower,” named for St. Therese of Lisieux who had recently been canonized, helped to finance the construction of a national shrine in Royal Oak, Michigan. Yet even before the pivotal election of 1932, Coughlin’s sermons had begun to incorporate political and social messages. Stoking fears of Communism, Coughlin skillfully wove anti-Semitic messages into his sermons, equating Communism with Jews.

University of Texas historian Robert Abzug writes that Coughlin “was one of the principal disseminators of anti-Semitic propaganda in mainstream American culture.” Throughout Hitler’s rise to power, Coughlin defended Nazism,ostensibly as a deterrent against Soviet Russia and Communism. He excused Kristallnacht and used propaganda speeches by Dr. Josef Goebbels without checking sources.

Couglin’s “Christian Front,” established in 1938, referred to the “synagogue of Satan” and published the Christian Index, a guide to non-Jewish merchants in New York City. Members of the Front were urged to “buy Christian.” Addressing Jews in a December 11, 1938 radio speech, Father Coughlin stated, “…You are a minority – a small but powerful minority. We are a majority – an easy-going, patient majority – but a majority always conscious of our latent power.”

--

"Father Coughlin:THE RADIO PRIEST : POLITICAL VIEWS, OLD TIME RADIO, AND RELIGION"

The times had watched Father Coughlin lend support to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Then at a speech Coughlin gave in the Bronx – perhaps his most famous – he gave a Nazi salute and yelled out, "When we get through with the Jews in America, they’ll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing." Proving this statement wasn’t a one-time lapse of judgment, Coughlin stated "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted," after the Jews across Germany were attacked, killed and burned out of house and home.

His speeches and programs were becoming even more anti-Semitic from that point, and radio stations in New York and Chicago began refusing to air his content without first pre-approving his scripts. One of the only available stations for Coughlin was the small WHBI in Newark, New Jersey.

Father Coughlin’s anti-Semitism made him a hero in Nazi Germany, where newspapers ran daily, stating that "America is not allowed to hear the truth." Some of the American public shared Coughlin’s views, and 2,000 supporters gathered and marched in New York, protesting the migration of Jewish refugees from Hitler’s camps. These protests were not short-lived; they went on for several months, and Coughlin embraced his supporters.

At the height of his anti-Semitism, Coughlin had joined forces with an organization named the "Christian Front," which cited the now-famous priest as a vital influence. In 1940, the FBI shut down the Christian Front, after discovering the group was arming itself and planning to murder Jews, communists, and even United States Congressmen. Although Father Coughlin was never directly linked with the Christian Front, he never disassociated himself from their radical intentions. His reputation soon declined as a result.

Father Coughlin: Radio Priest, Depression Demagogue at Teaching American History.net

Father Charles Coughlin is little remembered today, but in the 1930s he was one of the most influential figures in America, one of the first to utilize the power of the airways to promote a political and social agenda. He is also remembered for his use of the radio to promote bigotry and particularly anti-Semitism...

Coughlin soon became disillusioned with Roosevelt, and in 1934 created his own political organization, the National Union of Social Justice, for which he developed the fourteen “Principles of the National Union of Social Justice.” In these he called for the nationalization of banking, power, credit and currency “and our God-given natural resources.” He also proclaimed his group stood for “…preferring the sanctity of human rights to the sanctity of property rights.” Coughlin also began publishing a newspaper Social Justice. The National Union Party, an outgrowth of the National Union of Social Justice, challenged Roosevelt during the election of 1936. The party nominated Walter Lemke for President, but the candidate was only able to garner a meager 900,000 votes.

After this election, Coughlin’s radio speeches became increasingly anti-Roosevelt, calling the administration a “communist conspiracy and incipient dictatorship.” More disturbingly, he began to make increasingly vitriolic and anti-Semitic statements both on the air and in the pages of Social Justice, attitudes that had only been hinted at earlier in some of his broadcasts. His following, as Brinkley notes, remained large, but changed, and the throngs of crowds that waited to see him, and torrents of letters declined. After the election he reconstituted the NUSJ into cells known as the Christian Front organization, an extremist organization which included increasingly “violent and unstable” activities. One of this group's offices was raided by the FBI, and explosives were found. By 1940 Coughlin was effectively off the air, but continued his diatribes in his newspaper, where he expressed sympathy for Mussolini and Hitler, and even claimed the the Jews were responsible for starting World War II. In 1942, under the Espionage Act of 1917, the US Government banned distribution of Social Justice. In May of that year Coughlin’s Archbishop threatened to defrock him if he did not cease all political activities. Coughlin obeyed, but remained as the Parish Priest of the Shrine of the Little Flower until 1966. He died in 1979.

(Father) Charles E. Coughlin (1891-1979) at Holocaust Encyclopedia:United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, May 4,2009

Coughlin believed in the existence of a secret world Jewish conspiracy. In 1938 his magazine Social Justice serialized the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which Coughlin believed to be accurate. This tsarist forgery purported to be the minutes of a conference of Jewish leaders plotting to take over the world.

Coughlin repeatedly used the "Judeo-Bolshevik threat" as a theme, asserting that the entire Soviet leadership, including both Lenin and Joseph Stalin, was Jewish. Coughlin also accused American Jewish financiers, primarily the Wall Street firm of Kuhn-Loeb, of collaboration with the Bolsheviks in their efforts to uproot Christianity in Russia. Publicly proclaiming that he was not an antisemite, Coughlin nevertheless argued that all the ills of modern society were caused by a Communist-Jewish conspiracy.

During the 1930s Jewish efforts to force Coughlin to tone down his anti-Jewish rhetoric or to get him off the air altogether failed due to his popularity and the support he received from the Bishop of Detroit.