‘The Greatest Single Force of Our Day’: Father Charles Coughlin’s Audience and The Power of Radio

Abstract

Americans wrote more than 1600 letters to the Federal Communications Commission regarding Father Charles Coughlin, the notoriously anti-Semitic ‘Radio Priest’ of the 1930s, over the course of about ten years. The FCC received the vast majority of these letters in 1938 and 1939 not only after a particularly controversial speech broadcast in November 1938 but also amid the ensuing backlash. These letters to the FCC serve as a case study of how Americans used the Coughlin controversy to articulate their views about their rights as Americans and about what should be permitted over the airwaves, and to argue that radio as a medium presented a unique potential for danger.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 See, for example, Jon Meacham, ‘Opinion: Why Trump Is More Father Coughlin than Franklin Roosevelt’. New York Times, 3 May 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/opinion/trump-father-coughlin-roosevelt.html.

2 James T. Keane, ‘Before Rush Limbaugh, Father Coughlin was America’s first demagogue of the airwaves’. 19 February 2021. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/02/19/rush-limbaugh-politics-father-coughlin-radio-240072.

3 Andie Tucher, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 164.

4 Ibid., 118.

5 Bruce Lenthall, Radio’s America: The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 123.

6 Letter from Francis E. Hogan to the FCC, 10 October 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

7 For a thorough consideration of Coughlin’s life and career, see Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the Great Depression (New York: Random House, 1982); Charles J. Tull, Father Coughlin & The New Deal (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1965); Donald Warren, Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio (New York: The Free Press, 1996). See also David Goodman, ‘Before Hate Speech: Charles Coughlin, Free Speech and Listeners’ Rights’. Patterns of Prejudice 49, no. 3 (2015): 199–224. DOI: 10.1080/0031322X.2015.1048972; Tona Hangen, Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion, & Popular Culture in America (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002); Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); Kathy M. Newman, Radio Active: Advertising and Consumer Activism, 1935–1947 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); and Elena Razlogova, The Listener’s Voice: Early Radio and the American Public (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

8 Tucher, Not Exactly Lying, 183; Goodman, ‘Before Hate Speech’, 213.

9 Alyssa Clina, ‘Competing Americas: Letters to the FCC on Father Charles Coughlin’, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, (2424459237), 2020, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/competing-americas-letters-fcc-on-father-charles/docview/2424459237/se-2. Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 96–97, 84; Warren, Radio Priest, 8–15, 13.

10 Brinkley notes that Coughlin also sought ‘a creative means to extend far beyond [Royal Oak’s] two dozen parish families’ (23). He further attributes some of the decision to begin broadcasting to the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross in front of the Royal Oak parish; however, Warren argues that there is little to no evidence that the cross-burning actually occurred (Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 82; Warren, Radio Priest, 17–19).

11 Tull, Father Coughlin & The New Deal, 3–4, 8.

12 Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 92; Tull, Father Coughlin & The New Deal, 20. U.S. Census Bureau, ‘Population of the United States and Its Outlying Territories and Possessions: 1930, 1920, and 1910’, Population–United States Summary, accessed 11 April 2020, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1930/population-volume-1/03815512v1ch02.pdf. This number refers to the continental United States only. The very first issue of Coughlin’s periodical Social Justice in 1936 put forth a ‘conservatively estimated’ guess of ‘twelve to fifteen million persons’ (‘This First Edition’, Social Justice, 13 March 1936, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 1. An audience in the ‘tens of millions’ is a broad but safe estimate.

13 Charles Coughlin, ‘“Persecution-Jewish and Christian” Broadcast Transcript, 1938’, American Catholic History Classroom, accessed 31 August 2023, https://cuomeka.wrlc.org/items/show/571.

14 Otto D. Tolischus, ‘Nazis Defend Wave of Terror’, New York Times, 12 November 1938, p. 1.

15 Coughlin, ‘“Persecution-Jewish and Christian” Broadcast Transcript, 1938’.

16 Ibid.

17 This paradox did not go unnoticed by Coughlin’s listeners, either: as one man wrote, ‘He at once terms the Jewish people communists and financiers. Can you imagine a financier believing in the principle of Communism, a doctrine that seeks to divest one of his earthly possessions and to do away with property rights?’ Letter from William E. Ginsburg to Station W.A.A.B, 26 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

18 The Kristallnacht speech was far from the only instance of anti-Semitism from Coughlin; for example, Coughlin’s periodical Social Justice published extracts from the spurious and anti-Semitic ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, as some writers noted (Letter from Norman Burnstine to Frank McNinch, 7 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202).

19 Warren, Radio Priest, 158.

20 Qtd. in Warren, Radio Priest, 158.

21 Warren, Radio Priest, 158–159. The New York Times noted that this ‘[was] said to mark the first occasion on which a radio station has taken issue with a speaker beyond its usual disclaimer of responsibility’ and called WMCA’s statement ‘a significant development in the history of radio’. (‘Station WMCA’. New York Times, 22 November 1938, p. 22.).

22 Goodman, ‘Before Hate Speech’, 212; Warren, Radio Priest, 159–160.

23 ‘Important.’ Social Justice, 28 November 1938, vol. 2A, no. 2, p. 8.

24 Americans’ responses included not only a wave of letters to the FCC regarding WMCA (either to praise the station for its actions or to decry them) but also physical protests of the station’s offices. Thousands of picketers parked themselves outside of WMCA in mid-December 1938, crying such things as ‘Down with Jews’, ‘Jewish bankers barred Father Coughlin from the air’, ‘Heil Hitler’, and even ‘wait until Hitler comes over here’ (Qtd. in Warren, Radio Priest, 165–166). WMCA neither gave official comment on the picketing nor reversed their decision (‘2,000 Picket WMCA, Backing Coughlin’. New York Times, 19 December 1938, p. 24.) One writer stated to the FCC that ‘the very fact that the crowd which picketed W.M.C.A. carried anti-[Semitic] placards, it seems to me is evidence in itself that Father Coughlin has been stirring up racial hatred as [WMCA] alleges’ (Letter from F. Richmond Leonard to Frank McNinch, 19 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.) Another, appalled by both the broadcasts and the picketing, warned that it ‘showed what the next step in Father Coughlin’s campaign might be’ (Letter from Fred McLaughlin to Frank McNinch, 20 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200).

25 Letter from Sanford Cholfin to the FCC, 27 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

26 Letter from Eunice Fritz to the FCC, 28 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

27 Letter from ‘Anonymous’ to the FCC, 28 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

28 Letter from Thomas H. Smith to Frank McNinch, 27 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

29 Letter from Mr. and Mrs. Clement Reseska to Frank McNinch, 31 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

30 Beginning in 1931, Coughlin relied on purchasing time over a chain of independent radio stations to broadcast him each Sunday (Warren, Radio Priest, 38). Though religious broadcasters could often expect to obtain airtime for free, Coughlin rejected this prospect: ‘it was his conviction that if a speaker purchased the time he retained control over it’ (James A. Brown, ‘Selling Airtime for Controversy: NAB Self-Regulation and Father Coughlin’, Journal of Broadcasting 24, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 212).

31 Communications Act of 1934, Section 326 [47 U.S.C. 326] Censorship; Indecent Language. Accessed 16 April 2020 (https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf).

32 Louis Caldwell, ‘Freedom of Speech and Radio Broadcasting’. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 177 (Jan. 1935): 199–201. Caldwell was Shuler’s attorney on appeal of the refusal to renew the station’s license; as he confessed in a footnote, ‘I am anxious that the characterization [of Shuler’s case] be thought fair’ in his academic assessment of free speech on the radio (note 69).

33 One Coughlin opponent wrote to FCC Chairman Frank McNinch that she ‘[was] in sympathy with your program of making the air more difficult for people like Mae West’, adding that she could ‘understand why you demand a standard, especially in this fast and lose [sic] age. But I donot [sic] like Father C-I fear him’. (Letter from Lorrie B. Rankin Tillett to Frank McNinch, 9 February 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.) In an open letter to McNinch, journalist Dorothy Thompson likewise wondered why the FCC might act to curtail swearing on the air, for example, but not to censor Coughlin: ‘The uttering on the radio of the words “damn” and “hell” awakened the sensibilities of the Federal Communications Commission. Does the Federal Communications Commission believe that these two words are more likely to offend or corrupt any part of the American public than the implications of some of Father Coughlin’s broadcasts?’ (Dorothy Thompson, ‘On the Record: Abuse of Air? Open Letter to Mr. McNinch’, The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, IN), 20 December 1938).

34 Letter from T.J. Slowie to Clyde R. Miller, 8 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

35 ‘Coughlin Defends Address on Jews’. New York Times, 28 November 1938, p. 1.

36 Ibid.

37 Letter from Alvin M. Friedland to Frank McNinch, 5 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

38 ‘Radio Board Wary on Coughlin Talks’. New York Times, 23 December 1938, p. 4.

39 This, too, was despite the FCC’s insistence that ‘station licensees are not required by law to accept all material offered for broadcasting’ (Letter from T.J. Slowie to John J. Franklin, 14 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.).

40 Goodman, ‘Before Hate Speech’, 213.

41 Letter from Owen M. Blackwood to the FCC, 17 September 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 201.

42 Letter from Grace Bradford to Frank McNinch, n.d.: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

43 Letter from Mrs. H. Alcorn to Frank McNinch, n.d.: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

44 Letter from Mary Grotz to Frank McNinch, 20 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

45 For a discussion of the rise of public opinion as a measurable concept, see Susan Herbst, A Troubled Birth: The 1930s and American Public Opinion (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2021). She argues that public opinion as we understand it today took shape during the Great Depression—for example, through the rise of the ‘pollster’—and so too did the conception of public opinion as something that mattered and could be measured become more commonplace (2, 28).

46 Letter from Mrs. Cleveland Walcutt to the FCC, 27 February 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

47 Qtd. in Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 92.

48 Letter from Ruth A. McCauley to Frank McNinch, 20 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

49 Letter from Milton J. Gold to the FCC, 23 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

50 This potential for a truly massive audience did not go unnoticed by Coughlin’s listeners, either: as one wrote, ‘The radio reaches huge masses of the American people. Its responsibility, therefore, cannot be overestimated. In these chaotic times when confusion is widespread, it is the duty of the radio to promote good will…’ (Letter from Gilda Whitman to Frank McNinch, 12 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.).

51 Letter from Anne Secor to the Federal Radio Commission, 27 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

52 Letter from Mrs. E. Burrows to Donald Flamm, 29 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200. Though many Coughlin listeners threatened boycotts over either Coughlin’s speeches or radio stations’ actions, especially WMCA, Kathy Newman points out that whereas some took to boycotting a program’s sponsors as a form of protest, boycotts were more often ‘threatened’ than actually enacted (82). On the other hand, among the letters to the FCC was one to President Roosevelt from Allen Michaels, CEO of the Michaels Department Store and a sponsor of Newark radio station WHBI. ‘It may interest you to learn that we as advertisers…have been forced to refrain from extending our contract for further time on that station, due to threats of boycott we have received from many of our customers who take personal resentment of the messages broadcast…by Father Coughlin. […] Permit me to respectfully call your attention to the fact that Father Coughlin’s over exaggerated remarks are not only stirring racial hatred, but is actually causing hardship to business concerns like ourselves who suffer innocently because of boycotts’. (Letter from Allen Michaels to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 20 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.).

53 See also Goodman, ‘Before Hate Speech: Charles Coughlin, Free Speech and Listeners’ Rights’.

54 Letter from Jean M. O’Reilly to Frank McNinch, 2 January 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

55 Letter from Arthur J. Nouti to the FCC, n.d.: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203. See also Bruce Lenthall, Radio’s America; as he points out, President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats (as well as the programs of other politicians) inspired at least a feeling of involvement in politics for Americans, if not actual involvement. This involvement was a new development; before the Fireside Chats, Lenthall argues, the average American may have felt a distance from politics that Roosevelt’s congenial programs helped to bridge (96, 107). Many broadcasters also sought to assure their listeners that their letters were welcomed, offering contests or other incitements to fuel listener engagement (Razlogova, The Listener’s Voice, 85). That, paired with a newfound sense of involvement in the political system via the radio, led many Americans to readily offer their opinions about what they heard over the air. They believed that it was their right—if not as taxpayer or as citizen, then at least as radio listener.

56 Letter from Gregory A. Sherlock to Frank McNinch, n.d.: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 201.

57 Letter from Mary A. Carroll to the Chairman of the FCC, 17 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

58 Letter from Tenny Latimer to the FCC, 27 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

59 Letter from Mary Dolan to Donald Flamm, 28 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

60 Letter from Anne Seidenberg to the FCC, 17 March 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 201.

61 Letter from Edwin Law to the Federal Radio Commission, 22 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

62 Letter from Zachary M. Stadt to the FCC, 30 January 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

63 Goodman, ‘Before Hate Speech’, 213.

64 Letter from Sarah Cohen to the Federal Communications Bureau, 6 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

65 Letter from the Marion Temple Sisterhood to Frank McNinch, 8 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

66 Letter from Charles Cohen to the FCC, 5 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

67 Letter from Halperin to the FCC, 4 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

68 For example, Letter from Mrs. S.B. Barrie to Frank McNinch, 20 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

69 Letter from Earl P. [illegible] to the FCC, 23 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

70 Letter from Katharine E. Redden to the Federal Radio Commission, 27 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

71 Letter from Mrs. H. Walsh, n.d.: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

72 Letter from Anne Scully to the FCC, 28 November 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

73 Letter from Mrs. H. Alcorn to Frank McNinch, n.d.: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

74 Letter from Edwin Law to Frank McNinch, 4 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

75 Letter from H. Solomon to Station WWRL, 24 February 1939: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 200.

76 Letter from Allen I. Smith to Frank McNinch, 20 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

77 Thompson, ‘On the Record: Abuse of Air? Open Letter to Mr. McNinch’.

78 Letter from Sarah Levine to Frank McNinch, 2 December 1938: NA, FCC Records, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 202.

79 The NAB represented just over half of the AM stations possessing an FCC license to broadcast; nevertheless, this was still a significant step to which Coughlin supporters likewise objected (Brown, ‘Selling Airtime for Controversy’, 212–213).

80 Qtd. in Brown, ‘Selling Airtime for Controversy’, 211–12.

81 Brown, ‘Selling Airtime for Controversy’, 213–14.

82 Letter from Robert Huber to the FCC, n.d.: NA, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

83 Letter from Mrs. C.J. Burns to Federal Communications, 17 October 1939: NA, RG 173, Entry 44-3, Box 203.

84 Brown, ‘Selling Airtime for Controversy’, 215–16; Warren, Radio Priest, 223–224.

85 David Goodman, ‘Before Hate Speech: Charles Coughlin, Free Speech and Listeners’ Rights’.

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Alyssa Clina

Alyssa Clina is a Ph.D candidate at the University of New Hampshire.