The Father of Hate Radio - Fr. Charles Coughlin

[janet118]

Hate talk radio goes back to the Roosevelt years. Coughlin, a Catholic priest, had a radio program during the late thirties entitled "Golden Hour of the Little Flower." Here is a sample program: Jews Support Communism. There are whiffs of Beck and O'Reilly and Limbaugh in this smarmy, Christianoid spiel. He was insanely popular in his day - reaching, at one point, from between 30-40 million Americans.

I did a thesis on him in college and listened to hours of his tapes at the library. It was nauseating - a weird mixture of populism, religion and hate. As part of my research, I interviewed older people who had heard the original programs. More than a few of them told me that they still thought that Coughlin had made a lot of sense. I admit to being a bit freaked out by that. I was hoping that, with the passage of time, they had just forgotten how creepy he really was.

After (FDR's 1936) 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.

Father Coughlin: Radio Priest, Depression Demagogue

[47of74]

1. I was listening to Stephanie Miller earlier today

She mentioned how she had gotten a message from Bobby Kennedy Jr. about how bad the right wing hate speech had gotten in the 50's and 60s - especially during the time before his uncle's assassination. He thought it kind of quieted down after JFK died, but had come back in recent years, just as nasty as ever.

[janet118]

2. I read RFK, Jr. post on Huffington Post . . .

He said that JFK's planned speech for Dallas included warning about right wing. I got a copy of the speech from a local college site and put an excerpt up on another http://www.belowboston.com/diary/2485/speech-jfk-planned-to-give-in-dallas-on-112263">blog.

I also just read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass. Frightening.

[la la]

3. I've compared beck/hannity/limbaugh/o'reilly

to father coughlin for a few years----they have the spiel down pat.

[tavalon]

4. Father Coughlin was the start

but now they've multiplied like malignant tribbles.

[janet118]

6. Television has definitely upped the volume and reach of this poison

There is also an entire structure made up of mainstream foundations, think tanks, churches, organizations, corporations, politicians and reporters that supports, accepts and echoes the lies and hatred. Little or nothing exists on the left/liberal side to offset the noise.

[Itchinjim]

5. I asked my late mother once about Fr. Coughlin.

She told me that all she remembered of radio as a child were farm reports and Fr. Coughlin being an angry man shouting though the speaker. She also said that my grandparents listened to him a lot, which is odd considering grandma and grandpa were staunch FDR Democrats and raised their kids as such. Must have been some kind of misguided Irish-Catholic respect for priests.

[janet118]

7. Coughlin supported Roosevelt until 1934 . . .

Then, he formed his own party and ran a candidate against him. They may have listened to him in the early thirties. He lost a great many of his listeners after his break with Roosevelt, but had a hard core base of nutcases. I believe you're right about the misguided respect for priests though - I grew up in an Irish Catholic family so I know that factor well.

[Festivito]

8. Shrine of the Little Flower still stands, but memory of Coughlin fades.

I would suspect that donations played more of a role. At the beginning of FDR, people were angry. As FDR prevailed, the economy improved, the people were less angry and donated less.

The big donors move in as they do today. The message changed, just as the message inside churches changes today.

[janet118]

9. Interesting website . . . they don't say much about Fr. Coughlin

But they do archive old publications which seem to suggest that your fundraising motive is on target - at least for Coughlin. Here's another that announces the beginning of the National Union which ran its candidate against Roosevelt.

[Festivito]

10. That was fun. Thanks. /nt