-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Shrine of the Silver Dollar John L. Spivak(C)1940 Modern Age Books New York, NY ----- The book that brought down demagog Charles Coughlin, who was the second-most listened to radio-personality in the '30's, right behind FDR. John L. Spivak exposed Father Coughlin to be a fraud and in league with Nazi propagandists. Out of print for many years. Om K ----- PREFACE THIS VOLUME deals with some of the activities of the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, the radio priest of Royal Oak, Michigan, of which even the Roman Catholic church knows little. When I showed some of the documents reproduced here to his ecclesiastical superiors in the Archdiocese of Detroit, they were startled and profoundly shocked. Father Coughlin's activities fall into two distinct categories. There is the mysterious and possibly sinister one which includes dissemination of propaganda emanating from Germany, secret meetings with Nazi agents and propagandists and the establishment of a trained body of his followers drilled in military maneuvers and modeled on Hitler's storm troopers. His other type of operation is financial, involving the collection of several millions of dollars from the public to "save America" and "save Christianity." No one but himself and a handful of underpaid clerks and stenographers in his employ ever sees the books or knows how much was taken in and what was done with the money. As I show in this volume, some of that money contributed to "save America and Christianity" was used to buy blocks of real estate and to speculate on the stock market. Certain aspects of Coughlin's business practices raise the question of using the United States mails to defraud: for example, he collected a large sum from the public with assurances that it was for a "non-political organization" and then used some of that money to build a political organization. Other ventures smack of common racketeering. The material I have gathered points to only one conclusion. Father Coughlin has apparently turned a place of worship, the Shrine of the Little Flower, into a Shrine of the Silver Dollar. Back in 1933 a woman named Ruth Mugglebee published an adoring biography of the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, entitled Father Coughlin, the Radio Priest (Garden City Publishing Co.). She tells of the many "wonderful interviews" she had with the priest, and during one of them she quotes him (page 127) as saying to her: Do you know how I would live if I renounced religion and was illogical enough to disbelieve in a life beyond--in the real life? Why, if I threw away and denounced my faith, I would surround myself with the most adroit hijackers, learn every trick of the highest banking and stock manipulations, avail myself of the laws under which to hide my own crimes, create a smokescreen to throw into the eyes of men, and-believe me, I would become the world's champion crook. I have no way of knowing whether, deep in his soul, the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin has renounced his religion but, after digging around his various corporations with their incomes of several millions of dollars, I have concluded that he has certainly learned a trick or two of the "highest banking and stock manipulations." As for a smokescreen, he has spouted forth several of them, and each has covered some maneuver to bring in the money. Coughlin's shrewdest trick is as old as Wall Street. One by one he has set up a series of enterprises and tied them together with a string of dummy directors. One of these corporations, he admits, is profitmaking; others exist as non-profit institutions. One "charitable" corporation serves merely as a stockholding company for the profit-making corporation. All of them together accomplish several purposes not usually associated with the cloth: They enable Coughlin to tell his church to keep hands off; they offer ways of trying to avoid taxation; they provide the priest with huge sums of money which he can and does use as he pleases. In the past, when Father Coughlin was criticized even by high dignitaries of his church, he lashed out furiously at them. At other times he tried to construe criticism directed at him as an attack upon the Church, Catholicism and Christianity. Because of this I should like to make it clear that this study should in no way be considered a criticism of the Catholic church or its millions of followers. It concerns itself only with a man who is exercising a great influence upon this country and its people. That he wears a priest's robes does not exempt him and his acts from the same scrutiny to which any citizen playing a part in the political life of the country is subject. Our people have been swayed before by those in whom they believed, but when they learned the facts they knew how to handle their problem. The material and documents in this book are offered in the hope that they will aid the reader to form a Clearer picture of the man who seeks their following. J. L. S. CONTENTS Preface vii I. The Racket and the "True Cross" 1 II. A Private Business in the Shrine 15 III. The Strange Case of Aircasters, Inc. 36 IV. Helping the Poor, Inc. 49 V. Coughlin's Lawyer Admits 80 VI. Coughlin and Henry Ford 106 VII. Phony Patriots, Nazis and Coughlin 133 VIII. The Mystery of the Deficits 158 I. THE RACKET AND THE "TRUE CROSS" DETROIT SPRAWLS over a vast area, with the towns and villages on its outskirts almost a part of the industrial center. The stranger finds it difficult to tell where Detroit ends and a suburb begins. So it is with Royal Oak, where the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin holds forth from the Shrine of the Little Flower, twelve miles from the heart of Detroit, on what it known as 12 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue. Scattered homes and roadside stands line the wide and well-built highway which runs by the Shrine. As you approach Woodward Avenue by bus or car you suddenly come upon the high, imposing tower of the Shrine to which thousands every year make their pilgrimages. A steady stream of cars is always parking in front of the Shrine to discharge passengers who enter the church on tiptoe, speaking in hushed voices. The auto licenses show that the visitors come from all parts of the country, with Michigan and its bordering states predominating. The Shrine itself was built with an eye to attracting attention. Powerful lights, arranged with the skill of a Broadway advertiser, play at night upon the marble and granite tower, with its enormous relief of Christ crucified and the single word carved at his feet: Charity. The stone blocks, of which the church is built, are carved with inscriptions, some Biblical and some just good slogans. Both the Shrine and the tower, rising out of a picture-book setting of green lawn, flowers, and trees, are good examples of church architecture. The latter, with its figure of Christ, is very impressive. The agonized face looks down upon the highway with its teeming traffic, on the Broadwayish lights and across the street to the church-controlled grounds where a huge sign "Shrine Super-Service" marks the gasoline station run as a little side venture. "Visitors Welcome," "Shrine Inn," "Hot Dogs," face the figure on the cross. After a glance at the Shrine school-building close by, you leave the "Hot Dogs" and the pepped up "Shrine Super Service," cross the street and walk up the path to the heavy, massive doors of the church only to be confronted with a sign stuck in the lawn: "Souvenirs." A finger points to a building where the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin sells mementos ranging from his own picture to anti-Semitic books and newspapers. You breathe a sigh of relief once you pass through the church doors. Sandwiches and souvenirs have been left behind. You recall something about money-changers--and as the heavy doors close silently, you stare at another sign with its finger pointing toward the chapel: "Souvenirs." It's just another shop within the church itself where, in the shadow of the altar, the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin sells crucifixes, the Bible, picture post. cards of himself, the same anti-Semitic books and the Brooklyn Tablet, a publication which is also carrying on an anti-Semitic campaign. Through the open door of this shop you see the chapel. To the left is the patron saint of the Shrine; close by stands a desk with a sign: "Enroll here for the Radio League of the Little Flower." Underneath the shop and the chapel are the offices out of which the various Coughlin corporations solicit funds from the public-funds which have never been audited by the Church upon whose property Coughlin's organizations operate. Here is the headquarters of Social Justice magazine which, as I shall show, is not an organ of the Church but a privately owned publishing venture. Here the radio priest himself briskly directs his thriving moneyraising outfits. This church, with its shop, its Radio League and busy offices, was built by a man whose life began in an ordinary enough way. Born in 1891 of a middle. class, hard-working family in Hamilton, Canada, Coughlin appears, from the available biographical material, to have led the normal existence of one who prepares for the priesthood. Before he was ordained in 1916, he went through the usual courses at the University of Toronto. In 1926 he was assigned to the parish which has become famous as the Shrine of the Little Flower. Here, in the little wooden church, the ruddy-faced priest practiced his oratory, speaking with a pronounced Canadian accent and peering shrewdly at his parishioners through glasses. But in a short time Coughlin was to experience the devastating effects of hate. The Ku Klux Klan, even more bitter toward Catholics than toward Jews or Negroes, had been very active around Royal Oak, and Klansmen proceeded to burn Coughlin's church to the ground. Disturbed and seeking a way to rebuild the church, the priest consulted a friend of his, Leo Fitzpatrick, who is at present head of WJR, the radio station in Detroit, and one of Coughlin's followers. It was through Fitzpatrick that the Rev. erend Charles E. Coughlin began to preach sermons over the air and ask for money to finance a new building. No one, of course, knows just what Couhglin's thoughts were when he first began to plead for funds. But shortly thereafter, as I shall show later on, he started to use the money so collected for gambling on the stock market. I couldn't help thinking of his background when I entered the souvenir shop, and how the years had brought profound changes to the man who began his career in Royal Oak by suffering from the Klan's hatred for Catholicism. I had some letters that showed how Coughlin had worked his religion as a "come-on," as it is called in the advertising worldletters revealing a promotion scheme in which Coughlin used a "relic of the True Cross" to attract subscribers for his privately owned Social Justice magazine. Compared with some of his other activi. ties this was trifling. It interested me only because it showed how he had turned the deepest tenets of his faith into a commercial boost for his private business venture. Coughlin bought wholesale lots of little chrome. plated crosses stamped with "Radio League of the Little Flower," and then distributed them free in letters designed to get circulation for the magazine. The recipient was told that this gift cross had touched a "relic of the True Cross." And then in a postscript, as if the priest had just thought of it, he wrote: "Will you please do me a personal favor and secure one more subscription to Social Justice magazine this week or next. It expresses the suppressed truth. The enclosed card is for your convenience. God bless you!" Below that: "P.P.S. If some friend wants a crucifix let me know. C.E.C." I asked the hostess in the church souvenir shop if I could have a crucifix that had touched a relic of the True Cross. "I'm so sorry," she said with an apologetic smile, "but we're all out. There has been such a demand for them. We wired three times for additional supplies, and we've already sent out thousands--oh, thousands and thousands of them. But you know it takes a little time to manufacture and stamp them. I'm expecting a new batch this week and I'll send you one." "Perhaps I could get one back East," I said anxiously. "Oh," she shook her head in disapproval, "I suppose so, but it wouldnt be blessed. Father gets them, blesses the whole lot, and then we ship them out." "They come here direct from the manufacturer?" "Oh yes," she answered and added impressively, "We have already ordered three times, each time in larger shipments." There is no relic of the True Cross at the Shrine of the Little Flower. The wholesale manufacturer hasn't got a relic of the True Cross. The railroads carrying the shipments haven't got a relic of the True Cross. Just where, in the course of the manufacture, shipment, and distribution of these little advertising crosses they touched a relic of the True Cross is a mystery. The whole thing, I concluded, was a circulation raising scheme. However, I was a bit curious about one angle. I wondered where the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin got the authority to say that the advertising crosses had definitely touched the relic of the True Cross, and I decided I'd ask at the Archdiocese of Detroit. There were several questions I wanted to ask the priest's ecclesiastical superiors, anyway, questions as to whether they knew of his strange financial manipulations, whether he applied any of the money collected to church work and whether the Archdiocese received detailed accountings of what happened to the money. I called upon the Reverend Edward J. Hickey, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Detroit. When I told him what I wanted to know, his first reaction was to excuse himself. I explained that, since apparently many of the priest's activities were exceedingly sharp practice and some even appeared to be illegal, the Church's refusal to explain its knowledge or lack of knowledge of these acts might be misconstrued as approval. The Chancellor thought it over and finally said, "Just what is it you wish to ask?" "There's a minor question I'd like to ask first. Are there any relics of the True Cross in the United States?" "Those claiming to be relics of the True Cross can be numbered in the hundreds," he smiled, apparently surprised at the question. "If a person is willing to believe and finds solace in that belief, it is one thing. I am not saying there is no True Cross relic in the country." "Could a Catholic priest give people definite assurances that something is a relic of the True Cross?" "Only if he had documents which stand the test of the closest examination and have been approved by the Archbishop; otherwise he can use such a relic only for personal veneration." "Could a priest of the Catholic church tell people that something has touched a relic of the True Cross and use that flat statement for commercial advertising purposes?" He dropped his eyes for a moment. I had a feeling that he knew about the circulation scheme. "I don't think that question is considered in canon law," he said cautiously. "I don't believe it was ever thought of as a question for canon law." "I see. Could you tell me what control the Church has over Father Coughlin's finances?" "The pastor controls the finances of his parish. He sends in an annual report which states what his church property is--its income and disbursements. It is all itemized." "Do you ever audit his books?" "We don't audit the books of any church in the whole diocese." "Then you have no way of knowing if his reports are accurate?" "The Archbishop has authority to supervise the finances and make regulations regarding the finances of a pastor's church, but only of church property and monies. If he has a Radio League of the Little Flower or a Social Justice magazine, that is not under my supervision." "What about the monies taken in by the Radio League and the magazine?" "They are not included in the reports and are not under my supervision." "Has any money from the Radio League or Social Justice magazine gone to his church?" The Chancellor thought this over carefully. "I don't think he could have built the buildings and the school just with contributions made during his sermons," he said slowly. "He must have taken some of the money for his parish and church activities." "Does the Church exercise any control over the non-profit-making corporations organized by her priests?" "The only ones I'm familiar with are those like orphanages, of which, very often, the Archbishop is president-" "I mean non-profit-making corporations which get control of profit-making corporations, as in the case of the Social Justice Poor Society-" "The what?" said the Chancellor. "The Social Justice Poor Society." "I never heard of that one," he smiled. "He organized it ostensibly to aid the poor. Actually its sole function has been to serve as a holding company for Social Justice magazine stock. On the other hand, the Radio League of the Little Flower is actively collecting money from the public with assurances that it is a non-political organization. Some of this Radio League money, and parish money entrusted to his care, was loaned to a political organization he set up and controlled. So far as his parish money is concerned, I understand that he acts simply as treasurer or trustee for the church. It is also my understanding that when the treasurer of a company holds a firm's money in the firm's name, but can write a check for it, and then loans the firm's money without the firm's authorization, it's called larceny. What I want to know is: Did the Church authorize the loaning of parish money to a political organization?" The Chancellor seemed startled. "He is supposed to keep parish funds in the name of the parish and it's supposed to be separate from his personal account," he said definitely. "In relation to the Church and the state--what is the Church's attitude when money is raised by a priest for church activities and that money is then used to build a political organization?" "I don't believe the use of parish funds for such a purpose is permitted under canon law." "What control has the Church over Father Coughlin?" "I can only say what the Archbishop said: Permission to speak or print does not necessarily mean approval." "If what a priest says is proved to be false, and after evidence of its falsity is placed before him he deliberately repeats these false assertions, what can the Church do?" "If it affects our morals or doctrine, it's the duty of the Church to take it up. If it is politics, economics and social conditions, then it does not come within the scope of the Church." "If it is proved that a priest has violated state and federal laws?" The Chancellor looked worried and sat thoughtful for a long time. "That's a vague question," he said finally. "If it's a law like speeding, the Church does nothing, but if it's a serious violation which might degrade a person, he would not be allowed to practice the sacred duties of a priest." "What is the Church's attitude toward its priests' gambling on the stock market?" "The Church cannot condone the use of church funds for gambling." "Suppose money was raised ostensibly for church purposes and that money used for stock market gambling--" "Wouldn't it be better if you left me out of this?" be interrupted gently. "But I must quote a church authority," I explained. "I can't just say 'The Church said' or something equally vague. These questions concern a priest of the Catholic church who is wielding great influence in this country. Most people with whom I talk think he is speaking and acting for the Church. I've got to have someone in high authority whom I can quote directly." The perturbed look on his face deepened. "But wasn't that money in the hands of a secretary and raised by the League of the Little Flower?" he asked. "Yes. That's correct." "Then it wasn't parish funds--" "The League of the Little Flower was incorporated to raise money for the specific purpose of maintaining his church and to build a new one." "Oh," he said. "I didn't know that. I didn't know anything about that." II. A PRIVATE BUSINESS IN THE SHRINE SINCE THE Archdiocese did not get any kind of accounting of the money collected and what was done with it, there was no use asking the Chancellor for light on the whole huge system of corporations Coughlin has built up. The two biggest Coughlin holdings are the Social Justice Publishing Company, which issues the weekly magazine, and the Radio League of the Little Flower. Each of these corporations requires detailed explanation to show how it is operated. In this chapter I shall touch only on the basic plan for their incorporation and control and on the way in which money collected for one purpose was used for another. Social Justice at the time of writing has an enormous circulation, hovering around one million copies, with the priest plugging it over the air and by mail. Few subscribers realize, however, that it is not an official organ of the Catholic church but is a privately owned publication. As a private institution it exercises certain privileges that the casual reader might not expect in a so-called religious paper. The best way to show how remote the magazine is from the Church, how indifferent it is to presenting the truth, how it has tried to evade taxation, is to quote from some letters. The first two concern Coughlin's relationship with his ecclesiastical superiors. Acting on papal instructions, Archbishop Mooney of Detroit once tried to suggest that Social Justice ought to publish the truth in its pages. He was told to go roll a hoop--the magazine was a private business venture and not subject to direction by the Archbishop or anyone else. The occasion for this slap was an article in the issue of the magazine for October 18, 1937. This piece, entitled "Why Father Coughlin Determined to Cancel Broadcast Contracts," was deliberately written to mislead its huge reading public. That same day, immediately upon reading it, John M. Doyle, who preceded Edward J. Hickey as Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Detroit, wrote to E. Perrin Schwartz, editor of the magazine, urging that an accurate picture be presented because it was the Archbishop's job to see that Catholic readers are not misled. Let me quote from the Chancellor's letter: The action of the Archbishop is taken with a view to supplying the correct influence of full information and thus safeguarding your Catholic readers against misleading and disturbing inferences which the Archbishop fears they might, without such full information, draw from your article. The Archbishop's directions in this matter are given in accordance with papal instructions regarding the supervision which an Ordinary must exercise over publications edited by Catholics within his diocese. Because of these papal instructions, the letter states, "Archbishop Mooney urges me to direct you to publish in your next issue the exact text of the published statements of Father Coughlin and Archbishop Mooney touching matters referred to in your article." Obviously all that the Archbishop wanted was to get the real facts before Social Justice readers. Father Coughlin and his editor promptly rushed to Prewitt Semmes, Father Coughlin's personal attorney, who has offices in the Penobscot Building, Detroit. The lawyer replied rather bluntly: As attorney for Social Justice Publishing Co., I have been directed by the officers of that corporation to reply to this letter. I beg to inform you that the publication Social Justice is now and has always been published by Social Justice Publishing Co., a corporation chartered under the laws of the state of Michigan Feb. 13, 1936. It is not and never has been a Catholic publication. The corporation has among its employees Catholics resident within the Archdiocese of Detroit, of whom Mr. Schwartz is one, but these employees are not the publishers of Social Justice. I am directed to inform you, and through you, His Excellency, the Archbishop of Detroit, that while the columns of Social Justice are open at all times for any contributions which the officers of the corporation feel will be of interest to its readers, the corporation will continue to edit and publish Social Justice without supervision of anyone except its own officers. So much for Social Justices attitude toward papal instructions. In his letter to the Chancellor, Coughlin's lawyer failed to explain two important points: who owned Social Justice Publishing Company, which in turn controlled Social Justice magazine, and who were the officers in charge of editing the magazine "without supervision." The answer to the first can be found in a letter dated March 5, 1937, from Amy Collins, the treasurer of Social Justice Publishing Company, to the Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission. In this she asked that the company be granted tax exemption because it was owned by a non-profit-making corporation named the Radio League of the Little Flower. Let me quote the letter: Pursuant the terms of the Unemployment Compensation Act, this corporation claims exemption from the taxing provisions thereof, upon its operations covering its initial period ending December 31, 1936, as well as subsequent periods. The stock of this corporation is wholly owned by the Radio League of the Little Flower, a Michigan nonprofit corporation; the income neither inures to the benefit of any individual or individuals, directly or in. directly; and its operations do not constitute such as are specifically excepted from such exemption under the provisions of said act. For the aforesaid reasons, among others, this corporation claims it should be accorded a non-taxable status and now seeks such a ruling by your office. Social Justice had been making the payments as required by the Unemployment Compensation Act, but once the exemption requested in this letter was granted, the publishing company would get a refund automatically. And, of course, its employees would be left without benefit of unemployment insurance. If we go back now a little further in the history of the publishing company, it appears that its stock was not always "wholly owned by the Radio League of the Little Flower." On February 13, 1936, Charles E. Coughlin incorporated a venture which he called Social Justice Publishing Company. The corporation was recorded as one organized "for pecuniary profit" whose essential business would be publishing. The corporation, which means Charles E. Coughlin, authorized the issuance of five hundred shares of stock of no par value and fixed the price for sale at $100 a share. In the state of Michigan you can't start a corporation for profit with less than $1,000, so Charles E. Coughlin took ten shares of this stock which he said was worth $100 a share and thus had the $1,000 necessary to go into business. He was the one and only stockholder in the concern. The address of the incorporator was given as 12 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue, Royal Oak, which is the same address as the Shrine of the Little Flower. Corporations usually have a board of directors. In this instance, since Charles E. Coughlin was the sole stockholder, he called a meeting with himself and elected three members to a Board of Directors. Those three, all of Royal Oak, were Charles E. Coughlin, Eugenia Burke and Amy Collins. Both Eugenia and Amy were and are Father Coughlin's secretaries. I might add that it is quite customary for the big business boys, who know the "highest tricks of banking and stock manipulation," to use what are technically known as "dummies" for officers and directors. We shall come across these two girls repeatedly in subsequent chapters dealing with the strange financial manipulations engineered by Father Coughlin. Here I should mention that Amy Collins, also known sometimes as Amy Pigeon, is the same girl who held 500,000 ounces of silver for Father Coughlin when he was orating "for the poor unemployed" but actually was trying to raise the price of silver which he had bought on a 10 per cent margin in the market he was publicly denouncing. Every time Silver Charlie orated and the price of silver went up one cent, he made $5,000. The scheme worked perfectly until the Treasury Department let the cat out of the bag by publishing the names of the large silver-holders. Another of the tricks a big business man uses when he wants to control a corporation, on which he has rigged a set of dummy officers and directors, is to get the signed but undated resignations of the dummies in his pocket-just in case. Then if a dummy starts to make any trouble the big fellow just dates the resignation and the officer or board member is out in the cold. Whether the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin has these resignations I don't know, but from the way he has learned the tricks I don't imagine he is taking a chance on his secretaries' putting one over on him with some unexpected majority ruling. These three the priest and his two secretaries still constituted the board of directors of Social Justice Publishing Company in 1937, when the Archbishop of Detroit was told to go away and not bother them. The same trio were also the officers of the corporation: the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, president; Eugenia B. Burke, vice president and secretary; "Half-Million-Ounces-of- Silver" Amy, treasurer. But by this time, according to Amy Collins, Father Coughlin was no longer owner of the company on whose board of directors he sat. As Amy wrote to the Unemployment Commission, the stock of Social Justice Publishing Company now belonged to the Radio League of the Little Flower, making it the owner of Social Justice magazine in 1937, when the Archbishop was ticked off. And the officers of the Radio League were: president, the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin; vice president, Eugenia B. Burke; secretary-treasurer, Amy Collins. Its directors were: the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, Eugenia B. Burke, Amy Collins. This corporation, whose take from the public has been around one million dollars, was beautifully tied up, so that no outsider could possibly get a finger in the pie. Article IX of the Articles of Association of the Radio League provides specifically: "Officers shall be chosen by the original organizers or their successors in office." The corporation operates under a specific grant which was clearly stated when it was incorporated. I shall quote it in full, because, unless I am very much mistaken, there's a little question involved of using the United States mails to defraud, and that's a serious business. The purposes for which the Radio League was incorporated and collects the money follow: To broadcast and to obtain funds from those persons who voluntarily wish to assist in defraying the expenses entailed in radio broadcasting and in publishing, mailing the various pamphlets, sermons, prayer books, magazines, and other printed matter, also religious articles requested by those interested, either directly or indirectly, in the said Radio League of the Little Flower. To enter into such contracts as may be necessary to carry on the purpose or purposes of this corporation, and to donate such sum or sums of monies to the Shrine of the Little Flower Parish as may be necessary to help carry on its functions as such and to donate such sum or sums of monies to charity as the corporation may deem necessary. After a close scrutiny of these purposes I have been unable to find anywhere any power permitting the Radio League to collect money for the purposes stated and then lend that money to build a political organization. In fact, Father Coughlin has collected money for the Radio League of the Little Flower with the definite assurance that it is a "non-political organization" and then used that money to build a political organization which he controlled. The application card for membership in this Radio League of the Little Flower states in plain words: You are invited to join this non-political organization in defending the principles of Christianity and of Patriotism and to assist in bringing back to the fold those who have fallen away. Personally, I think that's a very pretty sentiment. But the important thing is the signed assurance that it is a "non-political organization." These assurances went through the United States mails, and money sent to this organization came through the United States mails. Now, let's see how the corporation used some of the money collected upon assurances that it was a "non-political organization." On December 12, 1934, four years after he started the Radio League, the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin incorporated another non-profit-making corporation known as the National Union for Social Justice, a political organization which later gave birth to the Coughlin-Lemke Union Party. By means of this party the radio priest hoped to get enough votes to have the balance of power between the two major political parties in the country. In typical Coughlin fashion the National Union for Social Justice had three incorporators who were also the Board of Directors. All of them gave their address as 12 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue, Royal Oak-the address of the Shrine of the Little Flower, which is exempt from taxation because it is a church and not the headquarters of a political organization. The incorporators, as usual, were the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin and two of his employees, Marie Rhodes and Dorothy Rhodes. Both of them are now employed by the Social Justice Publishing Company. Marie (Social Security Card No. 377-18-2129), after all the confidential work she has done for the priest, has been raised to a salary of $35 a week, and Dorothy (Social Security Card No. 377-16-3163) has finally achieved a salary of $33 a week. These were the incorporators of a political organization which was to make the established parties holler uncle. Dorothy handled almost $1,000,000 which the priest's followers were instructed to send in addressed personally to Coughlin. When this political organization was incorporated, it needed money to start operations. The priest took $2,000 of his church's money, from the funds of Sainte Therese Parish, and lent it to the National Union for Social Justice. The Catholic church permits its priests to handle church money by banking it in the name of the parish. This church and its money are exempt from taxation because it is claimed that neither is used for political purposes. The separation of the church and the state in this country is very sharp and distinct. Then the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin took $99,192.17 (I don't know what the 17 cents were for) of the money sent in by those who believed that the Radio, League of the Little Flower was a "nonpolitical organization" and lent that to the National Union for Social Justice. Finally, he took $10,000 of Social Justice magazine money and lent that to the political organization which he and two of his stenographers controlled. I think that the Catholic church is quite competent to deal with a priest who uses for political purposes parish money entrusted to his care and to decide whether it constitutes a violation of canon law. I shall leave that problem to the Church. What interests me is that the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin collected money for a "non-political organization" and then used it for a political organization. I have heard that there are severe prison penalties for using the mails to defraud. pp. vii-35 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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