Father Charles E. Coughlin, dictator of the National Union for Social Justice, yesterday asked American Jews to accept “Christ’s principles of brotherhood.”
Speaking before the convention of his followers here in the Public Auditorium, Father Coughlin, whose past attacks on “international bankers” have been devoted almost exclusively to those with Jewish names, declared:
“We are a Christian organization in that we believe in the principle of ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ With that principle I challenge every Jew in this nation to tell me that he does or does not believe in it.
“I am not asking the Jews of the United States to accept Christianity and all of its beliefs, but since their system of ‘a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye’ has failed, that they accept Christ’s principles of brotherhood.
“Besides Christianity, we also lift aloft the flags of the United States of America and swear our fealty not only to the red, white and blue, but to the Constitution which it represents in its entirety.
“On that point I challenge the Communist who hates the Constitution, the Socialist who would amend it into nothing, and to the Republicans and Democrats who won’t admit that Congress has the sole right to issue money–I challenge them to make the statements I make.”
This followed Father Coughlin’s previous day’s oration in which he pleaded with his flock:
“Don’t blame the Jews for everything. That’s Hitlerism.”
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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.
