Father Charles E. Coughlin’s publication, Social Justice, appeared today with a denial that the Detroit radio priest is anti-Semitic and says that “such an attitude on his part would be illogical, un-Christian and impractical.”
This followed a flood of attacks by Gentile and Jewish religious leaders that the Catholic priest’s addresses before the convention of the National Union for Social Justice two weeks ago were tinged with anti-Semitism.
The article quotes Father Coughlin as stating his strictures against “money changers” were not confined to Jews alone but included “prominent Gentiles, both Catholic and Protestant.”
“There would be no Jewish question in the United States,” the statement reads, “if certain timid Hebrews would cease searching for the burglar under the bed and if certain other citizens of the Jewish race were courageous enough to condemn publicly the unsocial Jew, together with the unsocial Christian, both of whom have exploited the poor Jew and the poor Christian throughout civilization.
“If a repetition of such insidious propaganda is persisted in by the lower strata Jew, to the detriment of the better class Jew who out-numbers the former, rest assured that the National Union for Social Justice and the many thousands of Jews who are enrolled therein will not sit idly by.
“We do not plan to assail only Rexford Tugwell and the Gentile radicals who dabble in Communism and international banking. We also plan to strike hard and fearlessly at Frankfurter, at Ezekiel and the Jewish international bankers, by name and by deed.”
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.
