RADIO PRIEST: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio [Hardcover]

Donald Warren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 1996

Chronicles the life and times of Father Charles Coughlin, the famed ""Radio Priest,"" whose program in the mid 1930s, ""The Hour of Power,"" let him share his controversial oratory with the masses. 10,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"International bankers" was a code description Charles E. Coughlin, a Roman Catholic Priest, used on his radio show; he did not need to say "Jewish international bankers," to make it clear whom he was blaming, not only for the rise of Communism, but for the Depression. Coughlin began his weekly Sunday afternoon sermons in 1926. During his heyday, he received more than 80,000 letters a week. He was an ardent anti-Communist who backed the fascist regimes of both Hitler and Mussolini, but is probably best-remembered for his anti-Semitic tirades. Donald Warren chronicles the rise and fall of the "Father of Hate Radio" and reveals why the Catholic Church was so slow to silence him.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1942, with the U.S. at war with a Nazi regime long praised by Father Charles Coughlin of the Shrine of the Little Flower in the Detroit community of Little Oak, Archbishop Mooney, his exasperated superior, finally put an end to the "unpriestly folly." Coughlin's slick radio sermons had already been stopped; now he was warned to cease involvement with the rabble-rousing publication he had founded, Social Justice. To a perturbed President Roosevelt, Mooney apologized: "The arena of politics is no place for one whose ecclesiastical character surrounds him... with a protective consideration he personally could never claim." Yet the silenced saint of the populist Right would retain ties to his church until his death in 1979 at the age of 88. A combination of Huey Long and Joe McCarthy in clerical cassock, with a touch of Goebbels thrown in, Coughlin was the first and most successful radio preacher of the interwar years. His blend of anti-Communism and anti-Semitism, combined with mellifluously menacing anti-government invective, raised millions of dollars from the discontented for Coughlin's various projects. Between 1926 and 1941, more mail arrived for him most weeks than was received at the White House. At his urging, loyal listeners would fire tens of thousands of telegrams to Congress, where he was feared for his ability to mobilize the otherwise inarticulate. His Sunday "Hour of Power" became an uneasily accurate title, intimidating many of his political, business and religious targets. Stifled after Pearl Harbor, he would never regain his clout. Although Warren (The Radical Center: Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation) has done his homework, he has not done justice to his subject. Sloppily written and whipsawed by bewildering time shifts, the biography evokes a career in bigotry clearly ominous even amid Warren's narrative lapses. Film rights: Goldfarb & Graybill; all other rights, Simon & Schuster.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (July 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684824035
• ISBN-13: 978-0684824031
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #995,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but still excellent biography, June 26, 2002

By 

Rottenberg's rotten book review (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RADIO PRIEST: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio (Hardcover)

"Radio Priest" is meant to remind people the author fears have both forgotten Father Charles Coughlin and may be unwisely underestimating those eager to apply his brand of media manipulation in the age of the internet. From the depths of the depression until shortly after America's entry into WWII, Coughlin, a Detroit Priest had become a political force of nature. Using his radio show and "Social Justice" his newspaper, he spread his message across the nation - a message that grew progressively overt in anti-Semitism and Facist advocacy. With the severity of the depression destroying lives across the world, the time was ripe for many to question democracy - as they had across the world, the popularity of socialism and fascism flourished across America. Though many figures grew out of the clash of these movements, Coughlin stood out - mostly because his position as a priest but mostly because of the eloquence with which he gave his fans the message they wanted to hear. He even possessed his own trademark accent, with its distinctive rolling rrr's. Coughlin attacked banking interests and polticians - codewords for the jews and those they were thought to have bought. Confronted with growing reports of Germany's anti-Semitic repression, he claimed sympathy for the jews, but attributed Germany's conduct to a natural response to Jewish Bolshevism. Ostensibly adhering to a religion which had suffered religious intolerance, Coughlin adopted the same penchant for mass hysteria as those who had victimized other Catholics.

Though war with fascism forced him into a sort of hiatus, Coughlin's decline had actually begun with the 1936 Presidential Elections. Unsatisfied with GOP front-runner Alf Landon, and seized by an outright hatred for FDR, Coughlin campaigned fiercely for the Social Justice candidate, William Lemke. Those left unfulfilled by FDR and unimpressed with Landon, flocked to Coughlin and his allies. Among them, Francis Townsend seemed more dignified, GLK Smith had more energy and Huey Long had more savvy, but Coughlin possessed something of the qualities of all three. Though Coughlin had the power, he displayed little interest in using it for even his idea of a greater good, and the social justice ticket ballot was dwarfed even by Landon's showing. By then, Long was dead by an assassin's bullet, and his political machine in Louisiana collapsed under the weight of its own corruption. Emboldened by his landslide, FDR embarked on a strategy to fast-track the New Deal with legislation designed to end run a hostile supreme court and thinly veiled threats to pack the high court if the first idea didn't work out. Coughlin, on the other hand, now embittered with politics, lost much of his dignified veneer. Both in his own tone and those of his followers, Coughlin became more closely identified with all that was bigoted in domestic fascism. By 1940, Coughlin had been sufficiently cut down to manageable size for his own church's hierarchy, and the Bishops silenced him. The threat of prosecution for sedition further kept him in line.

Doanld Warren argues persuasively that Coughlin's defeats - both in 1936 and when war broke out against those he had championed - were far from certain. Coughlin and others had long fed anti-Semitic hysteria in their warnings against the war. When the severity of the war was realized, hysteria against the Jews could have exploded in Coughlin's favor. Warren even cites outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in American cities. Further, despite the consent decree that immunized Coughlin in return for his silence, the radio priest remained active in using the mail system to search for a new generation of adherents among wartime servicemen. Warren highlights the depths of anti-Semitism in wartime America, but doesn't do the same for the horrific conditions of the depression - conditions that made us ripe for Coughlin and his followers. Also, he loses his focus after 1936, when Coughlin and company become more outright in their bigotry. Lastly, Warren frequently telegraphs his own sentiments against more modern day Coughlins like Pat Robertson and the Moral Majority. Whether today's right wing approximates that of 1936 America is a worthy subject, but one that Warren's asides seem to cursorily accept as true - an indisputable yardstick of conservative religious bigotry. Worse, it telegraphs the author's intention to write for a narrow readership - something Coughlin was doubtless famous for, though admittedly on a higher scale. These faults wouldn't matter if "Radio Priest" wasn't already a compelling book. Luckily, the book is not only compelling, but substantive enough to rise above what's wrong with it as well.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing mix of history and present day warning., May 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: RADIO PRIEST: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio (Hardcover)

Every cursory study of the Great Depression and the New Deal includes a brief reference to Catholic priest Father Charles Coughlin whose radio broadcasts savaged FDR and his advisors, but especially attacked the Jews and perpetuated the myths of Jewish conspiracies. Always, Coughlin is mentioned in passing and then the text moves on. Donald Warren's "Radio Priest" gives Coughlin and his times the attention and thoughtful analysis they deserve. Warren asserts that Coughlin was more than a priest who used his radio pulpit to spread his anti-semetic beliefs, but also as the father of hate radio. Warren connects Coughlin's career as a broadcaster in the early twenties to late thirties to today's radio and television commentators who champion racism in the name of fair-mindedness. In times of great poverty, Warren says, those who feel disenfranchised and powerless need to be part of the system or need to tear it down. The Great Depression and Coughlin seemed made for each other, and the priest definitely used the anger of the working class to propel himself to fame and eventually notoriety. Coughlin eventually alienated himselft from the government and his own Roman Catholic superiors and accepted an enforced silence to avoid possible federal prosecution. Warren amply explores the Catholic Church's growing discontent and embarrassment of its priest, and eventual plan to silence him. For those who always wondered why his superiors didn't stop Coughlin sooner, this books explains it in detail, including the Church's fear that Coughlin would resign and take his "radio flock" with him. He also discusses how the federal government conspired with Coughlin's bishop to stop the renegade priest. Unfortunately, there is little discussion as to why the priest did these things, but Warren can't be blamed for that. His book stands as a perfect example of well-researched and clearly written biography. We just must accept that Coughlin gave no reason for his professed hatred of Jews, or that he actually believed what he wrote and spoke. The reader is also left to wonder why Coughlin continued to bait his superiors and his government despite mounting pressure. By not speculating why Coughlin broadcast his vile messages or why he didn't stop until caught in a legal vise, Warren actually moves Coughlin from his traditional place as a Depression-era demagoue to a position in line with the mass media hate broadcasters of today. The lesson by comparison is chillingly clear: Coughlin wasn't an aberrant case, but a pioneer who blazed the way for others. An excellent biography and history of America's most troubled and fragile time.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Piles of details, but few overriding analyses or conclusions, January 14, 2000

By 

Garrick (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RADIO PRIEST: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio (Hardcover)

In reading this book, it is apparent that Donald Warren has done extensive, first-rate research on his enigmatic subject, Fr. Charles Coughlin. Unfortunately, the final product seems a bit rushed--I thought several times that it read like an undergraduate research paper. There are voluminous quotes and facts, but they are simply strung together as if to prove the author's thesis. Warren, especially in the opening chapters, reiterates constantly how Coughlin was the father of hate radio, and many other conclusions of his research, but they seem premature. Perhaps this is just the author's style. However, I would have appreciated a more judicious selection of information leavened with a good deal more of the author's own comments and ideas about what drove the man. This book is more of a large collection of facts rather than a biography, per se. But the facts presented are well researched, and many readers should be able to make their own conclusions and find the book a valuable record of American fascism.