The Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, Detroit’s “radio priest,” and the connection between his rise and the insecure economic situation in which millions of Americans find themselves today were discussed yesterday in the sermons of Rabbi Israel Goldstein and Louis I. Newman, speaking at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun and Congregation Rodeph Sholom, respectively.
“Father Coughlin has made a positive contribution,” said Rabbi Goldstein, “by stimulating millions of men and women to think for the first time not only upon economic questions but upon their political institutions and their political representatives in relation to their economic problems.”
Rabbi Newman declared Father Coughlin is a native product and, while radical, cannot be dismissed as an alien agitator.
SYMPTOM OF DISCONTENT
“Father Coughlin’s rise to fame and power,” Dr. Goldstein told worshippers at his temple, 257 West Eighty-eighth street, “should be seriously noted as symptomatic of the restlessness and the discontent which have been dormant but which are now becoming more vocal among the American people.”
He said the new Congress and President Roosevelt will have to swing further toward the left if the New Deal “is to satisfy the aroused consciousness of the masses of the people, touching their economic birthright to work, decent subsistence and a fair share in the abundance which our vast natural resources and technical skill make possible.”
TALKS GIVE COURAGE
Dr. Goldstein asserted that Father Coughlin has performed an indisputable good by taking the church into the arena of economic discussion, stating:
“A Catholic priest speaking as a Catholic priest on economic questions with the sanction of his archbishop before an audience of millions every Sunday is indeed a noteworthy phenomenon.
“The huge response to Father Coughlin’s radio addresses has given a strength and courage to many of the clergy of all denominations—Catholic, Protestant and Jewish—to bring the social vision of religion into the discussion of economic questions.”
PLAY ON PREJUDICE
On the other hand, Dr. Goldstein contended, the Detroit cleric’s contributions have been negative in some respects.
“He has on occasion shown traits of demagoguery,” declared the rabbi. “His address at the Hippodrome a year ago gave the impression of one who played up to mob prejudices, and the impression has since been confirmed by a number of his radio addresses:
“His views on birth control are reactionary. His invidious remarks regarding ‘Gentile silver’ have exposed his avowed liberalism on racial questions to some suspicion.
“His association with a number of leaders of finance and industry and his close contact with the Committee for the Nation may arouse some misgivings regarding his championship of the cause of the masses.
APPEALS TO TOO MANY
“The chief source for misgiving, however, is his less than desirable explicitness and his more than desirable emotionalism. His effort to appeal at the same time to the worker, the farmer, the middle class and the captain of industry casts doubt not only upon the validity of his program but also upon his own intellectual honesty.”
Rabbi Newman characterized Father Coughlin, Senator Huey Long of Louisiana and Upton Sinclair, defeated Democratic candidate for Governor of California, as “Utopians of American vintage.”
“We must study the reasons why they have gained so extensive a following,” he said at the West Eighty-third street synagogue, “if we are to diminish their influence.”
ELIMINATE DISCONTENT
He recommended as the best cure for “the propaganda of discontent” the elimination of the causes of discontent and advised the promotion of economic stability “among the masses who make up the following of the agitators.”
“The longer we postpone old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, care for the widowed, the handicapped, the sick and the underprivileged,” Dr. Newman asserted, “the greater grows the audience which gives ear to the prophets of discontent.”
The economic life of the nation must be rebuilt, he warned, or the population “will swing increasingly to the left.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
