{"id":12287,"date":"2024-01-13T23:26:23","date_gmt":"2024-01-14T04:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=12287"},"modified":"2024-01-17T00:23:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T05:23:48","slug":"the-united-states-home-grown-fascist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/01\/the-united-states-home-grown-fascist\/","title":{"rendered":"The United States\u2019 home-grown fascist"},"content":{"rendered":"

D<\/span>riving around the metro Detroit area, whether for business or pleasure, I often pass by the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, on 12 Mile and Woodward. The Shrine was infamously the home parish of Michigan\u2019s second most prominent Nazi sympathizer, \u201cRadio Priest\u201d Charles Coughlin. The most prominent is still Henry Ford. Indeed, it would be difficult for anyone to be more pro-Nazi than the auto tycoon, recipient<\/a> of the Nazi Grand Cross of the German Eagle, although Coughlin certainly tried.<\/p>\n

Father Charles Coughlin served as parish priest of the Shrine from 1925-1966. The church gained early notoriety when Coughlin reported in 1926 that the Ku Klux Klan left a burning cross on church grounds. This would not be a fantastic occurrence. The Klan was very popular in Metro Detroit and almost succeeded in electing their candidate, Charles Bowles<\/a>, as mayor in 1925. It was only due to thousands of disqualified write-in votes that Bowles lost. However, Coughlin biographer Donald Warren casts doubt on the cross-burning story. When he was writing Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio<\/em>, a collector of Coughlin memorabilia presented him with the alleged burned cross. It showed no signs of being even singed.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the veracity of the story, it showed Coughlin\u2019s talent for drumming up publicity. He made skillful use of media to get his message out. Beginning in 1926, Coughlin broadcast his Sunday sermons on the CBS radio network. The network then dropped<\/a> him in 1931 when Coughlin began addressing controversial political topics during the worsening Great Depression. Coughlin\u2019s show was picked up by the Detroit radio station WJR, which became the key station of Coughlin\u2019s independent network. The network grew, claiming 26 stations by October 1932<\/a> and 58 by January 1938<\/a>. Coughlin\u2019s talks were mass media. It\u2019s estimated that at the height of his popularity, a third of the country listened to his broadcasts. Hollywood offered to fictionalize his biography in the unmade film The Fighting Priest<\/em>, with Coughlin playing himself.<\/p>\n

Coughlin began as a staunch supporter of Franklin Roosevelt. He coined the phrases \u201cRoosevelt or Ruin\u201d and \u201cThe New Deal is Christ\u2019s Deal.\u201d Soon, Coughlin began to break with the President on issues like U.S. membership<\/a> in the World Court, coining silver currency, and recognition of the Soviet Union. In 1934, he created his own political organization: The National Union for Social Justice. The National Union\u2019s sixteen-point platform<\/a> was inspired by the papal encyclicals Rerum novarum<\/em> and Quadragesimo anno<\/em> calling for government regulation of business, the right of workers to form unions, and a progressive income tax. Notably absent was any defense of civil liberties or a democratic government.<\/p>\n

The National Union supported and was supported by various politicians. One of the biggest boosters was Cleveland Democrat Congressperson Martin L. Sweeney. Sweeney led a colorful life in office, including allegedly using his influence to protect his cousin Francis Sweeney<\/a>, a prime suspect in the still unsolved Cleveland Torso Murders, and opposing<\/a> the appointment of Jews to the federal bench. Other supporters included Representatives William Lemke, Thomas O\u2019Malley, and William Connery plus Senators William Nye and Elmer Thomas, all of whom sent congratulatory letters to the 1935 National Union convention. Detroit area Coughlin supporters included<\/a> former Detroit mayor Frank Murphy and Congressperson John Dingell Sr.<\/p>\n

In light of Coughlin\u2019s later explicit fascist sympathies, some of his pronouncements at this time take on a sinister tinge. When Coughlin gave his preference for \u201cgentile silver\u201d over gold, he was criticized<\/a> for dabbling in antisemitism. Coughlin\u2019s 1931 sermon \u201cProsperity\u201d attacking the Treaty of Versailles was informed by information provided by Congressperson Louis T. McFadden, one of the earliest Congressional supporters<\/a> of Adolf Hitler. During a Fall 1930 broadcast against communism, Coughlin despaired at \u201cthe anarchy, the atheism, and the treachery preached by the German Hebrew, Karl Marx.\u201d He regularly attacked \u201cinternational bankers,\u201d often emphasizing their Jewish surnames. Despite this, Coughlin continued to find support from some Jewish leaders both in Detroit and nationally.<\/p>\n

In 1936, Coughlin launched a full frontal assault on Roosevelt through the Union Party, an organization also supported by old age pension advocate Francis Townsend and Gerald L.K. Smith, who was in the process of devolving from the late Senator Huey Long\u2019s lieutenant to \u201cAmerica\u2019s No. 1 Fascist<\/a>.\u201d The three had difficulty collaborating, with Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas, deriding the Union Party as a creature of \u201ctwo and a half rival messiahs.\u201d The Party nominated North Dakota Congressperson William Lemke for President and former Boston district attorney Thomas O\u2019Brien for Vice President. Their platform was essentially identical to the National Union of Social Justice platform. It was around this time that Coughlin launched the newspaper Social Justice<\/em> as another avenue for his message.<\/p>\n

During the 1936 election, Coughlin\u2019s remarks about Roosevelt grew increasingly vituperative. At times it seemed like he and Smith were competing over who could hurl the most invective at the President. Smith exclaimed<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re going to get that cripple out of the White House!\u201d At the Townsend Club Convention, Coughlin, not to be outdone, called Roosevelt a \u201cbetrayer\u201c and a \u201cliar\u201d and dubbed him \u201cFranklin Double-crossing Roosevelt.\u201d Even if Coughlin had been forced by clerical superiors to apologize for these remarks, he soon outdid them. At one rally he warned, \u201cWhen an upstart dictator in the United States succeeds in making this a one-party form of government, when the ballot is useless, I shall have the courage to stand up and advocate the use of bullets.\u201d At another, this one in Rhode Island, Coughlin promised<\/a> \u201cmore bullet holes in the White House than you could count with an adding machine\u201d if Roosevelt were to be reelected.<\/p>\n

All this blood and thunder was for naught. Roosevelt won a landslide reelection and the Union Party got less than two percent of the vote. As small as this share was, it was still larger than that of the Socialist, Communist, and Socialist Labor Parties combined. The party failed to attract supporters of other electoral reformists such as the Wisconsin Progressive Party, the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, and End Poverty in California, who all backed Roosevelt. The reasons for the party\u2019s failure are numerous. It wasn\u2019t on the ballot in over a dozen states, the demagoguery of Smith and Coughlin likely repelled voters, and Lemke was a much less charismatic candidate than Roosevelt. Smith described<\/a> Lemke, his own candidate, as \u201ca complete composite of unattractiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n