THIRD PARTIES: 8,152-to-1

One good reason why the First Convention of the National Union for Social Justice aroused so little excitement in Cleveland last week was that on the day the meeting opened, Franklin Roosevelt was paying his first visit to Cleveland’s Great Lakes Exposition. Composed of as many women as men, among them a goodly proportion of Roman Catholics, the 8,153 delegates and alternates represented about 25 states. The great majority boarded at tourist camps and lodgings. Poor but loud, they burst into a 17-minute demonstration when Father Charles Edward Coughlin first appeared to “democratize ‘ his Union, hitherto a one-man show, put steam into its campaign to elect Representative William Lemke U. S. President in November.

Keynoter of the three-day shindig was young Senator Rush Holt of West Virginia, apostate New Dealer, who delivered a 90-min. harangue in favor of all Father Coughlin’s”16 points” of Social Justice, net of which is that cheap money is the key to a rich life for all. Orator Holt evoked boos for Representative John J. O’Connor (who last spring threatened to kick Father Coughlin from the Capitol to the White House), Herbert Hoover, the du Ponts, Carter Glass, WPA, the Federal Reserve System. He won cheers for Thomas Jefferson. Father Coughlin. Social Justice. Next Father Coughlin delivered a “schoolroom lecture” on economics, finance and the iniquity of the Federal Reserve System for creating false money “with a fountain pen and a piece of paper.” The Convention’s chairman, Cleveland Lawyer Sylvester McMahon, pronounced it “the greatest speech ever delivered on this mundane sphere.”Following the day, the Union was “democratized” by theunanimous adoption of a constitution providing thatits president should be elected in convention from among its trustees.Father Coughlin was unanimously elected president to serve until another president should be elected, and there was a great demonstration in which shirt-sleeved men paraded in feathered Indian headdress, girls blew kisses at the platform. With similar unanimity, the Convention adopted its political resolutions, couched in a churchly laudamus style : “We reaffirm our faith in American institutions, particularly our faith in the Constitution. . . . We praise that document. . . . We praise. . . . We further praise. . . Lastly we praise the Constitution in its entirety and inclusive of its amendments. . . . Finally, lest specification detract from the fullness of our sanction, we publish our unreserved and unqualified endorsements of all public acts, radio addresses and statements of our leader, pledging our resources and our activities in his support and in support of our 16 principles even as he has thrown into the battle every ounce of his endurance.”

Not until this love-feast had exhausted itself did the Convention get around to the formality of endorsing Presidential Candidate Lemke. In his weekly Social Justice, Father Coughlin had predicted an invasion of Judases at the Convention, men “who are on kissing terms with Franklin Delano Roosevelt together with a few others who are attempting a flirtation with Alfred Landon.” It looked as if Father Coughlin was to be cheated of his Judases until the vote was taken on Lemke’s endorsement. There was a roar of 8,152 “Ayes.” one faint “No.” Hastily from the back of the hall one John O’Donnell, an alternate from the 33rd Pennsylvania district, was spirited to the platform. Father Coughlin peremptorily shoved him to the microphone, gave him three minutes to speak. He mumbled something, lost in the shouts of the angry delegates, about the Union “humbly and ignorantly serving the purposes of the Liberty League and William Randolph Hearst.” Then police expelled him from the hall and a leader of the Pennsylvania delegation apologized for having ”one of Jim Farley’s stooges in his delegation.”

The Convention closed with another explosion of oratory. Dr. Francis Everett (“Old Age pensions”) Townsend read in a monotone a long paper promising the Union his oldsters’ cooperation. Rev. Gerald L. K. (“Share the Wealth”) Smith, stripping off his coat and exposing a blue shirt wet with perspiration, gave the delegates 50 minutes of rabble-rousing satisfaction. Representative Lemke spotted next to closing like the star turn on a vaudeville bill, shouted: “If Congress hesitates too much in going through with the mandate of the American people. I’ll keep them in continuous session for four years until they do. Oh, I’ll let them go home once in a while to get acquainted with their constituents instead of Wall St.” Saved for Father Coughlin, however, was the big dramatic finale. Having completely tuckered himself out discussing his disillusionment in Franklin Roosevelt, challenging the Jews to “accept the doctrine of Christian brotherhood” and swearing that if the President did not drive the money changers from the temple, the people would, the bellowing Detroit priest wilted at the microphone five minutes before his time was up. Bedded, he recovered enough to explain: “My knees were buckling under me. Then everything went blank. I turned around and fell into the arms of a policeman.”