- Headline
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Around The Town
- Publication Date
- Friday, August 5, 1938
- Historical Event
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Father Coughlin Blames Jews for Nazi Violence
This database includes 1,077 articles about this event - Article Type
- Location
- Page Section and Number
- 6
- Author/Byline
- --
- Article Text
- Good morning!
We were not surprised to read last week that the Senate Civil Liberties committee brought out the fact that the Republic Steel corporation in battle with labor attempted to mobilize the pulpit as well as the middle class and the general public against the C.I.O.
The beneficiaries of the American system have always tried to use the pulpit to keep the people satisfied with the conditions that benefit the vested interests.
A preacher who sees his Christ as a radical and rebel in the interest of human rights, and attempts to follow in his footsteps will certainly not be very popular in a church where the large property-holders are the bosses both financially and otherwise.
It seems to this writer that too many of our churches have become ultra-respectable and addicted to innocuous services, all of which is highly acceptable to those financial backers or sponsorers known as the pillars.
We know of several local ministers who are quite liberal in their thoughts and outlook, but they take pains to conceal their liberalism from their congregations and especially from the church's "sacred cows" and "fat cats" who pay the piper and want to call the tune.
A minister in some county churches once confided to the writer that it was his conviction that Soviet Russia was conducting a truly Christian experiment. Of course he didn't tell that to his congregation.
A city minister used to lend his moral support to local labor rallies, now he confines himself to the Parent-Teacher's association.
These are only samples of how several local ministers are obliged to compromise their ideals in order not to offend the well-to-do patrons of their churches. We could quote other instances where we discovered the minister had interesting and almost radical convictions in private which were never voiced in public.
We do not contend that all local ministers are obliged to compromise themselves.
Indeed we are acquainted with certain reverends who have all the earmarks of dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries, who are both temperamentally and mentally conservatives by nature: Ministers who do not see Christ as a radical.
There are ministers who seem to gain more soul-satisfaction in dining with the "respectable" personages of the community or the congregation, than with calling on the afflicted and downtrodden.
It is an unhappy commentary that preachers fail to speak out against certain wrongs committed by powerful persons in the congregations and in the community such as "macing" employes by employers for welfare funds, such as the disposesslng of the unfortunate by rapacious creditors, etc.
It is even worse when the pulpit throws its influence on the side of capital in its struggle with labor, prostituting both the clerical profession and clerical talent, siding with the rich and spurning the poor whom Christ always befriended.
Let us pray that will never happen in York.
Herr Hitler, political and economic autocrat of the unfortunate German people, presented Henry Ford, foremost American Industrial autocrat, the highest Nazi award on the occasion of Ford's seventy-fifth birthday anniversary last Saturday. Henry accepted the medal.
It is significant that the great German Anti-Democrat has not offered the Gorman Golden Eagle to any of the truly liberal men of America.
We can not conceive of men of the type of the late Edward J. Filene, or Senators Wagner, Norris, Borah, or John L. Lewis, being offered the Golden Eagle.
Nor can we imagine them accepting any award from the man who has mercilessly persecuted innocent people because of their race, creed and convictions; who has trampled under foot civil liberties, driven from their homes in Germany and old Austria, some of the world's foremost thinkers, scientists, professional men and benefactors of mankind, along with other folks because they were born of Jewish race.
Wonder why Hitler decorated Ford? Could it be that the two men have so much in common that the Nazi dictator considers Ford an example of Nazism in America?
Could it be on account of Ford's once violent anti-Semitism? or Ford's current anti-unionism? Or just the open admiration of a great political dictator for a great industrial dictator?
Henry and Adolf do have these things in common: Dislike for Jews, hatred for legitimate labor unions, and the notion that the rank and file should take orders and be glad to get them.
We think that Ford should have spurned Hitler's Golden Eagle.
No American, worthy of the name, should, in our estimation, accept the badges that are worn by the Nazi fraternity, that specializes in persecutions, intolerance, and political, social and spiritual barbarities of cruel Medieveal[sic] night; of the fraternity that in several sections of the world has strangled in the cradle infant democracies.
It has been said that by men's deeds one shall know them. Is it not equally true that by the medals one wears men shall judge them? - History Unfolded Contributor
- Steven B.
- Location of Research
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Learn More about this Historical Event: Father Coughlin Blames Jews for Nazi Violence
- Charles E. Coughlin (Encyclopedia Article)
- American Catholics and Nazi Antisemitism (Catholic University of America)
Bibliography
Warren, Donald. Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin the Father of Hate Radio. New York: The Free Press, 1996.
Marcus, Sheldon. Father Coughlin: The Tumultuous Life of the Priest of the Little Flower. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973.
Coughlin, Charles. The Fine Art of Propaganda: A Study of Father Coughlin's Speeches. Edited by Alfred McClung Lee and Elizabeth Briant Lee. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, c1939.
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