Now-editorial Notes

Father Coughlin, the radio priest who thundered for months against the money changers, has been caught in the meshes of temptation. Father Coughlin denounced the gold standard with vehernent bitterness, week in and week out, and now it is discovered that while he was thus seeking to save the American people from worshipping the Golden Calf, he permitted his Radio League of the Little Flower to speculate in silver on a narrow margin.

The Herald Tribune, commenting editorially on Father Coughlin and his League, writes:

“Many times Father Coughlin has denounced the ‘Augean stables of Wall Street;’ he has demanded that they be purged of their speculative ‘filth’ and the ‘brokerage offices’ be conducted upon ‘Christian, religious principles of justice and charity.’ But apparently all this applies only to questions of ‘Jewish gold.’ When it comes to ‘gentile silver’ that pure substance-the principles of religious justice and charity in brokerage make it all right to gamble his radio league’s funds, with a ten per cent margin, on ‘the President’s word’ that he will raise commodity prices! ‘Gentile silver’ must be a marvelous commodity.”

The temptation of Father Coughlin, which led him to the evil ways he was denouncing, revealed the dangers as well as the weaknesses of demagogues who gain momentary notoriety and influence with a large number of people. Father Coughlin kept quoting Pope Leo XIII as his inspiring guide. Father Coughlin endeavored to impress himself upon the people as the advocate and champion of the masses against the capitalistic oppressors. He attacked viciously the foremost Catholic layman in the United States, Alfred E. Smith, as a tool and servant of Wall Street, on the ground that he was seeking a loan from the international bankers. He came to New York to address a huge mass meeting presided over by Henry Morgenthau and denounced in violent terms the monetary system of the international bankers and praised the efforts of President Roosevelt to bring about a radical change in the monetary system.

In the meantime Father Coughlin, continuing his crusade against Wall Street and the stock market, thought it proper and wise to “invest” funds of his Radio League of the Little Flower in silver, on a ten per cent margin, agitating for the rise of this “commodity.”

Suddenly something happened which caused the radio priest to change his attitude to President Roosevelt and especially to Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, and in his farewell Sunday sermon he censured them in his characteristic fashion. Then came the revelation which explained his sudden change of heart.

Spirtual leaders who mingle politics and business with their religion cannot continue long as spiritual leaders. These interests do not blend successfully. You cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time.

Father Coughlin, who built up such a huge following by his sermons on the air, was led astray by Satan.

A WISE GOVERNMENT

Word comes from Prague that the Czechoslovakian Ministry of the Interior has prohibited the importation and distribution of “The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion” and “The Jews,” by Gottfried Feder, a member of the Hitler regime. These books, Hitler’s weapons of falsehoods against the Jewish people, are disseminated by the Nazis for the purpose of discrediting the Jews and of justifying the in-human policy of anti-Jewish persecutions in Naziland.

The Government of the Czechoslovak Republic, headed by such humanitarian democratic statesmen as President Masaryk and Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Benes, know the methods of poisonous propaganda that are employed by the Hitler regime and sense the menace of such propaganda to the democratic institutions of Czechoslovakia. The suppression of these forged and spurious “documents” is an act of wisdom and exemplary courage. There is no longer any doubt in the minds of sane and honest people that the “Protocols” are a deliberate and clumsy fabrication concocted by Prussian and Tsarist Russian Jew-baiters. They were devised for political purposes years ago and are now being used by Hitler’s government for similar purposes. Czechoslovakia, one of the most successful democracies created since the end of the World War, realizing the grave consequences of the spread of Hitler’s hideous propaganda, has adopted a sensible defensive measure.