Coughlin Asks $100,000 to Finance Summer Radio Talks; Seeks 3 New Stations

Father Charles E. Coughlin has opened a drive for $100,000 to finance his weekly broadcasts through the Summer months. The appeal for contributions is published in the latest issue of his organ, Social Justice, which also states that Father Coughlin is now negotiating to add three stations to his present network of 46 units.

“One hundred thousand dollars are needed to carry Father Coughlin’s weekly broadcasts through the Summer months,” the full-page appeal states. “THAT SUM IS NEEDED WITHIN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS — or Summer broadcasting cannot be assured. In order to keep his contracts with his privately formed chain of stations (after the subversively inclined national networks barred him) Father Coughlin MUST broadcast every Sunday of this year.”

The negotiations for addition of three stations are reported in another full-page add which is devoted to an “anti-war essay” contest offering prizes totalling $16,000, for participation in which children must first sell two one-year subscriptions to Social Justice.

“With the intensifying of national issues it is also desired that Father Coughlin’s radio chain be lengthened so as to include all sections of the United States,” the announcement states. “At present 46 stations handle the weekly broadcast. These, however, are confined pretty much to the northeastern part of the country. A vast portion of the South and West are beyond hearing distance.

“Negotiations are now under way for the adding of three new stations, each with a power of 50,000 watts. One of these is situated in an Eastern city, with excellent radio coverage over the city of Washington. The second is in a region penetrating the ‘deep South,’ and the third is in the far West. It is possible from this latter station to run lines to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, thus completing a national network which would carry Father Coughlin’s weekly messages to every square foot of the nation.”

While Social Justice seeks to jack up its circulation by a contest, the paper is being vended on the streets of several cities. In New York, there have been several altercations and minor clashes as a result of the inflammatory slogans shouted by hawkers of the paper. In some cases, it was noted that vendors of Social Justice were accompanied by persons dressed in green shirts and black ties, apparently bodyguards.

The Coughlin organ spreads anti-Semitism (while denying it is anti-Semitic) by linking Jews to Communism in news stories, articles and editorials; it goes into frequent tirades against refugees, and it has manifested an increasing friendship for Germany.

Indicative of its treatment of the Jewish question, the paper, in its April 10 issue, cites the recent “Stop Hitler” parade in New York as evidence that Jews are the “leaders” and “brains” of the Leftist movement in the United States and publishes letters seeking to show that Jews are intolerant of Christians. The April 3 issue accuses Jewish detectives in Philadelphia of unjustified arrest of Christians at a “tolerance” rally.

The paper has taken a strong stand against further admission of refugees into the United States and devotes prominent space to Senator Robert Reynolds (Dem., No. Car.) bills to halt immigration. Regarding Germany, Social Justice condemns the seizure of Czechoslovakia, but campaigns strenuously to prevent the United States Government from acting against the Reich, devotes the back page of its April 3 issue to an article featuring a large portrait of Hitler and the caption, “Rome-Berlin Axis is a Firm Rampart Against Communism,” and, in its April 10 issue, in the course of an attack on a rabbi who criticized Father Coughlin, says that “Germany is a more Christian nation than the America in which Rabbi Arzt talks so freely.”