Religion: Priest v. Press

When Roman Catholic churchmen take part in worldly affairs they usually do so unobtrusively, reversing the tactics used such persons as Los Angeles’ loud Methodist “Bob” Shuler on the radio and Virginia’s astute Methodist James Cannon Jr. on the stump and in the newspapers. Rev. Charles Edward Coughlin of Detroit is a blaring Roman Catholic exception. His voice as blatant as Preacher Shuler’s, his words as un-clerical as Bishop Cannon’s, he is known to large sections of the U.S. as a rousing, throbbing radiorator on the “Catholic Charrch” and, more lately, on the tangled affairs of “Detroy-it.” It has been estimated that ten million people listen to Canadian-born Priest Coughlin, 41, when he broadcasts Sundays from his

“Shrine of the Little Flower” near Detroit. Money has poured in upon him, more than enough to pay $20,000-a-week expenses and build a showy “Charity Crucifixion Tower,” buy statuary for the Shrine. Criticism he can ignore, even that of Boston’s stocky old William Henry Cardinal O’Connell who has muttered, “It is better for everyone concerned when a priest keeps his place.” For Father Coughlin is responsible only to his superior, Bishop Michael James Gallagher. And he claims the backing of Pope Pius XI who has said that “every minister of holy religion must throw himself, heart and mind, into the conflict for social justice.” Last fortnight and again last week, Father Coughlin’s ten million inarticulates suddenly beheld him on the newspapers’ front pages, a dramatic figure in two conflicts far from churchly.

In Father Coughlin’s small bungalow in the Detroit suburbs, late one night last week, were himself, his assistant and a Franciscan monk. Father Coughlin’s bedroom is on the ground floor; the others above. At 3 a. m. came a sharp explosion. Father Coughlin was shaken out of bed, he said. Neighbors awoke, called police. Father Coughlin called his good friend Mayor Frank Murphy. Streets were roped off, the house surrounded by guards. In the basement, police found remains of a crude, small black-powder bomb. The explosion had wrecked a steam-pipe, broken windows, spattered canned goods about. Otherwise, no damage. Only clue was a long white cord by which the bomb had perhaps been lowered into the cellar.

The bombing of Father Coughlin’s house came with singular if not sinister timeliness. He immediately charged that it was an attempt at intimidation, a further persecution of him by his enemies. Having leaped into the thick of Detroit’s banking fracas (TIME, April 3), Father Coughlin had just publicly aspersed E. D. Stair, publisher of the Detroit Free Press and non-salaried president of the holding company for closed First National Bank. Father Coughlin had talked of “smart money,” charged that insiders gutted First National before the banking holiday.

The Free Press had swiftly countered by getting at Father Coughlin’s bank and brokerage accounts. Photostating one of them with the label “smart money,” it showed that Father Coughlin’s balances had been as high as $55,516.20 in June 1930, that in the same year he had lost $13,955.89 on a $30,110.89 stock deal. The Free Press showed that Father Coughlin had sometimes deposited $20,000 at a time in $1 bills— gifts from radio listeners —and that part of the stock he bought was paid for with money from the account of the radio “League of the Little Flower.” The Free Press did not dwell on the fact that Father Coughlin was legally free to manage his radio receipts as he pleased.

The odor of the stockmarket on Father Coughlin’s cloth was quickly counteracted by the odor of gunpowder after the bombing. From a “gambler” he changed suddenly into a “martyr.” He moved from his damaged cottage into his striking Charity Crucifixion Tower, remained incommunicado save to announce that he would soon reply to his “enemies.” Sunday, with vibrant voice, he addressed once more the ten million. Defending his right to speak of financial matters, he renewed his denunciations of “crap-shooting bank affiliates and their hideout holding companies” which he had charged were formed to evade paying double liability. His investments he mentioned only briefly, crying that the Free Press “defames the League of the Little Flower and myself for investing in productive Michigan industry,* which we will do again.” Of the mysterious bombing of his house, Father Coughlin said not a word.

* Kelsey-Hayes Wheel Corp., whose shares were quoted at $60 in 1929, $2 last week.