Thread: Father Coughlin 'So this is democracy'

This is a radio address done by Father Coughlin on April 30,1939

YouTube - Father Coughlin ...'So this is Democracy' 1/3

YouTube - Father Coughlin...'So this is Democracy' 2/3

YouTube - Father Coughlin... ' So this is Democracy' 3/3

The effort to suppress the free speech and free press rights of Father Coughlin are instructive as to how much the powers that be respect the Constitution of the United States, then as now!

Following is the subsection form the Wikipedia article on Father Charles Coughlin titled Cancellation of radio show:

At its peak in the early 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as a third of the nation. Coughlin is often credited as one of the major demagogues of the 20th century for being able to influence politics through broadcasting, without actually holding a political office himself.

Earl Alfred Boyea, Jr. in 1995 showed that the Catholic Church did not approve of Coughlin. The Vatican, the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, D.C., and the archbishop of Cincinnati all wanted him silenced. They recognized that only Coughlin's superior, Detroit Bishop Michael Gallagher, had the canonical authority to curb him, but Gallagher supported the "Radio Priest". Due to Gallagher's autonomy and the prospect of Coughlin leading a schism, the Roman Catholic leadership did nothing.

A radio battle was fought in the late 1930s between The Reverend Walton E. Cole, a Unitarian minister in Toledo, Ohio, and Coughlin. Cole tried to prevail upon the Roman Catholic hierarchy to have Coughlin's inflammatory broadcasts stopped. Walton Cole's widow, Lorena M. Cole, donated his papers to the Claremont School of Theology with personal notes and reminiscences about this tense episode.

In spite of his early support for Roosevelt, Coughlin's populist message contained bitter attacks on the Roosevelt administration. The administration decided that although the First Amendment protected free speech, it did not necessarily apply to broadcasting, because the radio spectrum was a "limited national resource" and regulated as a publicly owned commons. New regulations and restrictions were created to force Coughlin off the air. For the first time, operating permits were required of those who were regular radio broadcasters. When Coughlin's permit was denied, he was temporarily silenced.

Coughlin worked around the restriction by purchasing air time and having his speeches played via recordings. However, having to buy the time on individual stations seriously reduced his reach and strained his resources.

According to Marcus' book, Coughlin's opposition to the repeal of a neutrality-oriented arms-embargo law triggered more successful efforts to force him off the air. In October 1939, one month after the invasion of Poland, the Code Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) adopted new rules which placed "rigid limitations on the sale of radio time to spokesman of controversial public issues". Manuscripts were required to be submitted in advance. Radio stations were threatened with the loss of their licenses if they failed to comply. This ruling was clearly aimed at Coughlin due to his opposition to prospective American involvement in World War II. As a result, the September 23, 1939 issue of Social Justice stated that he had been forced from the air "...by those who control circumstances beyond my reach" (pp 173–177).

Coughlin reasoned that although the government had assumed the right to regulate any on-air broadcasts, the First Amendment still guaranteed and protected freedom of the written press. He could still print his editorials without censorship in his own newspaper, Social Justice. However, the Roosevelt Administration stepped in again, this time revoking his mailing privileges[25] and making it impossible for Coughlin to deliver the papers to his readers. He had the right to publish whatever he wanted, but not the right to use the United States Post Office Department to deliver it. The lack of a conduit to his followers seriously reduced his influence, and after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war in December 1941, the anti-interventionist movement (such as the America First Committee) began to sputter out, and isolationists like Coughlin were seen as being sympathetic to the enemy. On May 1, 1942, the Archbishop of Detroit, Most Rev. Edward Mooney, ordered Coughlin to stop his political activities and confine himself to his duties as a parish priest, warning that he would be defrocked if he refused. Coughlin complied and remained the pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower until retiring in 1966.

Coughlin refused most interview opportunities, and continued to write pamphlets denouncing Communism until his death in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 1979, at the age of 88.

Iconoclast