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RADIO PRIEST: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio

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"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.

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.

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.

The horrors of the Great Depression-the bank closings, the starvation, the joblessness, and the loss of faith in the government-drove millions to question fundamental assumptions about themselves and their country. Similar economic difficulties in Italy and Germany led to the rise of fascistic governments preaching nationalistic hatred. In the United States, however, figures arose touting the same solutions but ultimately failed to bring about a revolution. It was easy for men like Father Charles Coughlin to exploit the desperation welling up in every corner of the nation. Often this exploitation took the form of scapegoating minorities or "international bankers." As the Second World War began, the radio priest and many others on the far right began their long fade into obscurity, but their messages of hate lived on to inspire new generations of far right figures. Donald Warren's biography of Father Coughlin examines his rise and fall as well as the links between this controversial figure and present day radio talk shows.

The author argues that conservative talk radio pundits owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Father Charles E. Coughlin. It was this priest, broadcasting out of his Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan during the 1920s and 1930s, who perfected the techniques used today to spread vitriol via the airwaves. Coughlin was the first to create "infotainment," the melding of news events with a bombastic delivery style aimed at capturing a large audience. He was wildly successful in this endeavor, attracting through his radio speeches and his magazine "Social Justice" an audience that numbered in the millions. The subject of Warren's book was the first public figure to obliterate the distinction between politics, religion, and mass media entertainment.

Coughlin's life reads like a fantastic fable of the self-made man. Born in Canada to devoutly Catholic parents, his life was unremarkable until he decided to become a priest and entered the Basilian Order after college. This Catholic sect opposed banking, usury, and other supposed ills of an industrialized society. Coughlin's later positions on the economic woes caused by the Great Depression stemmed largely from the views he learned from the Basilians. In the meantime, he moved to the United States to become a diocesan priest in Michigan. Placed in charge of a small Catholic church in Royal Oak, the young priest eventually took to the airwaves as a way to raise funds for the construction of a new church building that would carry the name the Shrine of the Little Flower. The first broadcasts, intended for children, consisted of simple Christian teachings. Eventually, Coughlin's vocal abilities and an increasing willingness to criticize public figures led to a huge response from the public. From his first lecture attacking Norman Thomas, he soon moved on to excoriating President Herbert Hoover for the government's failure to alleviate the worst aspects of the depression. Money poured in from adoring listeners, and Charles Coughlin was on his way to fame and fortune.

The priest originally endorsed Franklin Roosevelt as the panacea America needed to cure its misfortunes. After the New York politician captured the White House, Coughlin often went to Washington to advise the new president on economic matters. New Deal officials, however, were suspicious of the radio priest and his ideas. The eventual falling out with Roosevelt led to the formation of the Union party in 1936. Led by Coughlin, Gerald L.K. Smith, and Francis Townsend, this political attempt to unseat the president by running William Lemke of North Dakota as a presidential candidate failed miserably. The priest, embittered by his loss, began to move to the far right by advocating decidedly pro-Axis viewpoints. The entry of America into the Second World War caused further difficulties: the government banned the "Social Justice" newsletter from the mails as seditious materials, threatened to file charges against the priest, and put pressure on the Catholic Church to force his retirement from the airwaves. Barred from his former avenues of influence and power, Charles Coughlin drifted into obscurity. He died in 1979.

Warren's attempt to tie Coughlin to modern day conservative radio talk shows is amazingly forced. It's true that there are some shared aspects here, but there are more differences. The book fails to take into account how much America has changed between the 1920s and 1930s and the 1990s. The Great Depression was an event unparalleled in the history of the country, a time when unemployment rising to unheard of levels led to the emergence of demagogues who promised simple solutions for the nation's ills. No similar comparison can be made for the 1990s; a time of unparalleled prosperity thanks to the Internet boom saw unemployment sink to record lows. The only thing remotely the same during these two disparate periods was a controversial democratic president in the White House.

Moreover, the conservative talk show hosts of today never engage in the blatant blather Father Coughlin indulged in; it's simply unacceptable to the American public of today to blame minorities for controlling the banking system or being the guiding hand behind world communism. Warren seems to think there is a comparison, citing a talk radio listener's on-air comment in the 1990s about blacks. But that is a listener airing a viewpoint not shared by the host of the program, very different from Coughlin in the late 1930s. Donald Warren's "Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio," is a capable book when it describes the biographical details of an influential figure in American social and political events of the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, it neither proves its central thesis nor sheds new light on one of America's premier demagogues.

Over twenty years ago, I briefly met the aging Fr. Charles E. Coughlin. It was coincidental that only a short time earlier, the Catholic Church had come out with a proclamation declaring that the Jews were no longer perceived as the killers of Christ. I don't believe that Coughlin and I exchanged ten sentences. Nonetheless, I readily recall Coughlin's irritation towards this vatican decree. I also realized that I could no longer delude myself that Coughlin was merely misunderstood and vilified by a secularist Liberal media. A few days later I called into the radio talk program of David Newman of WXYZ Radio. I shared with Newman's audience my new conclusions concerning the infamous Radio Priest. This revelation did not go over well with my fellow right-wing Catholics who were dismayed by my candor. I was at that time the Detroit Vice President of a reactionary group calling itself "Catholics United for the Faith," a listed contributor of the ultra-conservative weekly, "The Wanderer," and an occasional guest on the local radio and TV circuit representing that point of view.

Most people not raised within a highly authoritarian Catholic milieu cannot begin to understand the mind boggling power of a parish pastor. In the pre-Vatican American Catholic Church, the world literally revolved around the very ambitious Fr. Coughlin. I am sure his word was law, and nobody dared oppose even his minor whims. Coughlin answered to virtually no one. It may be best to imagine Coughlin as something akin to an emperor of a mythical kingdom set in a fairy tale. The late Donald Warren, for instance, produced overwhelming evidence that Fr. Coughlin could have easily been convicted of tax fraud. This priest did not hesitate to spend on himself large sums of many donated to the Shrine. Where were the auditors? Once again, it behooves me to reiterate that Coughlin answered only to his bishop. On a practical level, this resulted in rare and mild inquiries into his activities. I might also add something that the Warren and other scholars should have emphasized further: Coughlin's parish, the Shrine of the Little Flower, was technically in the Detroit Archdiocese, but situated far out in the boonies. This was one very isolated parish during Coughlin's heyday. All telephone calls between the downtown chancery building and Coughlin's residence were most certainly charged long distance rates. I have often wondered if Fr. Coughlin would have gotten so out of balance if he was geographically closer to his superiors. The only priests Coughlin dealt with on a daily basis were those under his total control. Coughlin interacted little with clerics equal in status and authority.

Dr. Warren has been taken to task by some in failing to reveal Fr. Coughlin at the deeper levels of his personality. I believe this criticism to be patently unfair. It is my guess that nobody ever got that close to this enigmatic man. Fr. Coughlin probably engaged in sexual relations with at least one woman. There was also other behavior hard to justify for a man committed to the priesthood. Reconciling the two incompatible lives may have forced Coughlin to distance himself from warm and healthy relationships that most humans take for granted. This could also explain how Coughlin, a banal and shallow man could delude himself that he possessed a profound mind concerning world history and economics. Most of us exist in a give and take world that doesn't hesitate to take us to task for our intellectual failings. One would be forced to present hard evidence of an alleged Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. We would be held up to ridicule if our argumentation was found wanting. The Radio Priest made sure he would never be placed in such a predicament. Coughlin essentially ignored those who disagreed with him.

Fr. Coughlin's involvement in the "America First" movement with Charles Lindbergh did much to curtail our nation's preparation for World War II. It may be argued that without Coughlin, this movement would have never gained such clout. How many lives were ultimately lost because of Fr. Coughlin? I am sure the numbers are horrendously high. We must never forget Fr. Coughlin. I would like to think that history will never again repeat itself, but realistic enough to know that another Fr. Coughlin is always lurking in the shadows. Let us be better prepared the next time such evil is in our midst.

Without wishing to simply restate the themes of some of the fine reviews already posted, one cannot help but be saddened by the fact that this otherwise good biography is so tainted by "contemporarism." As one who has actually listened extensively to Coughlin's broadcasts, I am appalled that Warren would make any meaningful comparison between Father Charles and Rush, Sean, and other conservative talk-radio stars. It simply does not work. Coughlin always based his tirades upon the almost reactionary clericism then dominate within the Catholic Church and a form of "Americanism" that has far more to do with the doctrine of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and 1930s (their hatred of Catholics aside)and the isolationism of the same period than with anything about modern conservatism. The differences are so apparent and profound and the author's efforts so transparent that the conclusion is unavoidable that Warren has chosen to use his study to promote a radical liberal agenda. This would seem to be either a function of scholarly corruption or of intellectual immaturity. Regrettably the editors and readers of this press did not intervene to keep the author on the straight and narrow of simply writing a good history. Actually, if comparisons must be made, Coughlin's spirit is far more evidenced in the strident tone and emotionalism of the active intolerance of the ACLU for religious expression/belief and the war by the NAACP upon the heritage and identity of an entire segment of the American people. Next time Donald, do it right!

A very good description of an important part of American history that should be read by every American over 18 so that they understand how to evaluate conduct by those telling us what to believe so they can avoid some of the terrible msitakes Americans have made in the past because of a demagogue.

The book fails to deal with Father Charles Edward Coughlin time and time again on the air carefully distinguishing between religious Jews who he sincerly respected and sought to partner with against Soviet Communism and the radicalized post-Judaic secular Jews who he rightly pointed out were disproportionately the vanguard of Soviet Bolshevism, constituting more than 65% of the original Bolshevik Central Committtee. Coughlin also pointed out the Bolsheviks were primarily bankrolled by American investment banker Jacob Schiff, a point accepted by all.

Coughlin questioned why those who cried for the post Hapsburg Czechs in 1938 were oddly silent on the murder of more than twenty million (20,400,000)Russian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian Christians by the Soviets or the murder of thousands of priests, hundreds of nuns and 19 bishops in Loyalist Spain 1936-1939. He wondered why the US did nothing against the Masonic persecution of the Catholic Church 1925-1929 in Mexico which murdered people like Saint Father Miguel Pro who died crying "Viva Christo Rey!" to a largely silent American press.

Coughlin questioned the dupilicity of no one caring for action about Catholic deaths in Spain, Mexico and Belarus. He called the Nazis evil "plunderbunds" and "un-Christian". He called the Communists "Anti-Christian". To call Father Coughlin a Nazi is a blood libel.

This is a fine biography of a ( ) dressed in the cloak of thechurch. It works on several levels. Warren shows how there is alwaysa ready ear even for the most reactionary prattle, especially when there is crisis in the air. The book also works as a fine bit of historical investigative journalism. Coughlin's connections to the Nazis has never been as clearly laid as in this book. Highly recommended. END

Father Coughlin had the spine to say what he belived and told the truth as he seen it. Too bad we don't have Catholic priest today with the...[guts] to tell it like it is.

How can anyone not see what going on in the media with the soul murder of the American people by the people the good priest warned us about.

God bless Father Coughlin