Failure of the Dies committee to conduct a thorough investigation of Christian Front activities exposed by the recent Federal Bureau of Investigation action has stirred new congressional opposition to appropriations for continuing the committee.
Representative Samuel Dickstein, who originally supported an appropriation for the committee when it was organized, challenged committee members from the floor to show that they were willing “to attack the problem that is most essential to be attacked today–fascism in its worst form.”
“You have not subpoenaed the men engaged in activities which are the greatest evil to America,” he said, “those connected with the Christian Front and the Christian Mobilizers. You have allowed these men to organize in this country in one form or another to overthrow the Government. In my city last month and the month before, blood was shed in numbers of instances because the so-called Christian Mobilizers who were claiming backing from Father Coughlin were parading and demonstrating on the streets of New York.”
Meanwhile, Monsignor John A. Ryan, of Catholic University, branded “radio priest” Charles E. Coughlin’s newspaper Social Justice an “incitement to injustice.” Addressing a panel session of the Atlantic States Institute of the National Conference of Christians and Jews today, the noted Catholic educator said the paper was “full of hatred, misery and incitement to injustice.”
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