Charles Coughlin - Early Life and Work

Early Life and Work

Coughlin was born in Hamilton, Ontario, to Irish Catholic parents, Thomas J. Coughlin and Amelia Coughlin, graduated from St. Michael's College in 1911, and was ordained to the priesthood in Toronto in 1916. He taught at Assumption College in Windsor, Ontario, before moving to Detroit in 1923. He began his radio broadcasts in 1926 on station WJR, in response to cross burnings by the Ku Klux Klan on the grounds of his church, giving a weekly hour long radio program.

Until the beginning of the Depression, Father Coughlin mainly covered religious topics in his weekly radio addresses, in contrast to the political topics which dominated his radio speeches throughout the 1930s. His radio addresses began to communicate a more political message in January 1930, when he began a series of attacks against communism and socialism. In addition to attacking communism and socialism, he also criticized the capitalists in America whose greed had made Communist ideology attractive to many Americans. Having gained a reputation as an outspoken anti-communist, in July 1930 he was given star billing as a witness before the House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities.

In 1931 the CBS radio network dropped free sponsorship after Coughlin refused to accept network demands that his scripts be reviewed prior to broadcast, so he raised money to create his own national network, which soon reached millions of listeners on a 36-station hookup. He strongly endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1932 Presidential election. He was an early supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal reforms and coined the phrase "Roosevelt or Ruin", which became famous during the early days of the first FDR administration. Another phrase he became known for was "The New Deal is Christ's Deal." In January 1934, Coughlin testified before Congress in support of FDR's policies, saying, "If Congress fails to back up the President in his monetary program, I predict a revolution in this country which will make the French Revolution look silly!" He further stated to the Congressional hearing, "God is directing President Roosevelt."

Coughlin's support for Roosevelt and his New Deal faded later in 1934, when he founded the National Union for Social Justice (NUSJ), a nationalistic worker's rights organization which grew impatient with what it viewed as the President's unconstitutional and pseudo-capitalistic monetary policies. His radio programs preached more and more about the negative influence of "money changers" and "permitting a group of private citizens to create money" at the expense of the general welfare of the public. He also spoke about the need for monetary reform based on "free silver". Coughlin claimed that the Depression was a "cash famine". Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz agree that the Federal Reserve's monetary policy helped cause the depression. Coughlin proposed monetary reforms, including the nationalization of the Federal Reserve System, as the solution.

Among the NUSJ's articles of faith were work and income guarantees, nationalizing "necessary" industry, wealth redistribution through taxation of the wealthy, federal protection of worker's unions, and decreasing property rights in favor of the government controlling the country's assets for "public good". Illustrative of his disdain for free market capitalism is his statement

We maintain the principle that there can be no lasting prosperity if free competition exists in industry. Therefore, it is the business of government not only to legislate for a minimum annual wage and maximum working schedule to be observed by industry, but also to curtail individualism that, if necessary, factories shall be licensed and their output shall be limited.

By 1934, Coughlin was perhaps the most prominent Roman Catholic speaker on political and financial issues, with a radio audience that reached tens of millions of people every week. Alan Brinkley states that "by 1934, he was receiving more than 10,000 letters every day" and that "his clerical staff at times numbered more than a hundred". Moreover, he foreshadowed modern talk radio and televangelism In 1934, when Father Coughlin began criticizing the New Deal, Roosevelt sent Joseph P. Kennedy and Frank Murphy, both prominent Irish Catholics, to try to tone him down. Ignoring them, Coughlin began denouncing Roosevelt as a tool of Wall Street. Coughlin supported Huey Long until Long was assassinated in 1935, and then supported William Lemke's Union Party in 1936. Coughlin opposed the New Deal with increasing vehemence. His radio talks attacked Roosevelt, capitalists, and Jewish conspirators. Another nationally known priest, Monsignor John A. Ryan, initially supported Coughlin, but opposed his efforts after Coughlin turned on Roosevelt. Kennedy, who strongly supported the New Deal, warned as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue." Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) in a successful effort to get the Vatican to silence Coughlin in 1936. In 1940–41, reversing his own views, Kennedy attacked the isolationism of Coughlin.

In 1935, Coughlin proclaimed, "I have dedicated my life to fight against the heinous rottenness of modern capitalism because it robs the laborer of this world's goods. But blow for blow I shall strike against Communism, because it robs us of the next world's happiness." He accused Roosevelt of "leaning toward international socialism on the Spanish question." Coughlin's NUSJ gained a strong following among nativists and opponents of the Federal Reserve, especially in the Midwest. As Michael Kazin notes, Coughlinites saw Wall Street and Communism as twin faces of a secular Satan. Coughlinites believed that they were defending those people who cohered more through piety, economic frustration, and a common dread of powerful, modernizing enemies than through any class identity.

One of Coughlin's campaign slogans was: "Less care for internationalism and more concern for national prosperity" which went well with the 1930s isolationist movement in the United States. Coughlin's organization especially appealed to Irish Catholics.

In 1936, Coughlin helped found a short-lived political party, the Union Party, which nominated William Lemke for President. Coughlin promised to retire if Lemke did not get nine million votes, and when he received only 900,000 Coughlin stopped broadcasting briefly, returning to the air in 1937.