Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
June 1962 | Volume 13, Issue 4
Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
June 1962 | Volume 13, Issue 4
The handling of wartime seditionists was at all times a thorny problem, and especially in the case of Father Charles E. Coughlin, the famous “radio priest” of Royal Oak, Michigan. Coughlin had become prominent through his antiSemitic and anti-New Deal tirades on the air and in his weekly newspaper, Social Justice . According to Biddle, Father Coughlin’s opposition to the war effort and his predictions of defeat posed a very real danger, for even after Pearl Harbor the priest still commanded a huge following. Ordinarily, Biddle would have instituted legal action, but he feared that a sedition indictment against Coughlin would stir widespread resentment among the Catholic population and from the powerful isolationist press at a time when national unity had to be preserved at all costs. Another means of quieting the troublesome priest had to be found.
I asked Leo T. Crowley, a prominent Catholic layman and a close friend of the President whom I knew well and trusted, to lunch with me. He was then chairman of the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. He was very skillful at settling rows and cleaning up messes. I went over the priest’s past activities—and his future—in some detail. If the grand jury indicted Coughlin, I told Crowley, the resulting controversy might do infinite harm to the war effort. Why could we not appeal to the Church hierarchy to silence Coughlin? Surely the Church did not want that kind of a fight—and we would have to go through with it if we started. The point was to win the war—not to indict a priest for sedition. Who was the man, I asked him, to whom we could appeal, a man of real power, who could and would act? The grand jury might indict Father Coughlin at any moment.
Archbishop Edward Mooney of Detroit, he answered at once, was the only prelate who had authority and would exercise it. Father Coughlin was directly under him. “Do you know him?” “Well,” he said. “Will you see him at once?’ He agreed; he was certain he could persuade the Archbishop. He would fly out to Detroit the next day. Should we talk to the President first? On the contrary, Leo said, that would embarrass both of them—“I’ll bring it back tied up—then we can tell the President.”
In three days he was again in my office, smiling and rubbing his hands at the success of his mission. The Archbishop had agreed at once, without any stipulation or condition. He had sent for Father Coughlin and told him that he must stop all his propaganda, on the air or by pen, for the duration. Social Justice should not be published again. The Archbishop wanted his word. The alternative was being unfrocked. The priest agreed, and the Archbishop confirmed his understanding of the arrangement in a brief