-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 person in the '30's, right behind FDR. John Spivak exposed Father Coughlin to be a fraud and in league with Nazi propagandists. Out of print for many years. Om K --[3]-- V COUGHLIN'S LAWYER ADMITS I HAVE some documents which show that the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin collected money "to build a new church," and while this money was flowing in from the public he began to play the stock market. It was during this same period that Coughlin, in his radio speeches, denounced stock market gambling as "shooting craps with other people's money." The documents I have also show that he took almost $4,000 of the money sent by his listeners in response to his appeals and lent it to his father, Thomas J. Coughlin. I tried several times to see the radio priest to ask for an explanation, if he had any, as to where he got the money to play the stock market and where he got the legal authority to lend his father money collected from the public to build a church. There was a number of questions I wanted to ask, but each time I called I was told that he was too busy. After the interview I had with Prewitt Semmes, Coughlin's attorney, with which I deal in this chapter, Semmes agreed that some of my questions could best be answered by Coughlin himself. The radio priest, however, still refused to see me even after his attorney urged him to. Apparently he did not want to talk about where he found the money for his market flyers. Ten years ago the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin had already started broadcasting in a modest way as the voice of the "Golden Hour of the Little Flower." Money to support his religious sermons over the air came in response to his appeals. The priest saw possibilities and promptly organized a League of the Little Flower, which he incorporated. (This was the predecessor of the present Radio League of the Little Flower.) The League of the Little Flower was incorporated on January 10, 1928, to function for thirty years. The specific purposes for which the state of Michigan permitted it to collect money from the public were unmistakably set forth in the Articles of Association as follows: To obtain funds, which will be donated toward defraying the expense of operating the Parish Shrine of The Little Flower, at Woodward Ave., and 12 Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; and further, to obtain funds, which will be donated toward the building of a new church in said parish. Apparently, even at that time, he had learned how the big boys in the financial world operate, for he sewed up his new corporation in the hands of a little trio right from the start by providing in the Articles of Association that "Officers shall be chosen by the original organizers or their successors in office." He was going to be sure no one else horned in on it. The original incorporators and officers were the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, Frank L. Wood and Eugenia B. Burke. Over the small network of stations the priest's call for funds "to build a new church" met so encouraging a response that he decided to branch out. First, however, it was necessary to dissolve the already established corporation, so on July 19, 1930, he called in two of his secretaries, Amy Collins and Eugenia Burke (Frank L. Wood had been eased out and Amy took over the finances). At this meeting Coughlin and his two employees decided that thirty years was an awfully long time. Without any qualms they cut the life of the corporation to two years and seven months, thus bringing about its demise on August 10, 1930. Amy Collins then wrote to John S. Haggerty, Michigan's Secretary of State, notifying him that the corporation had gone out of business. The records, she added blandly, were at 1705 Fairlawn Avenue, Royal Oak-which happened to be her home. So far as the state of Michigan was concerned, that was that. No one asked Coughlin or his secretaries what they did with the money collected from the public. That, I learned, seems to be one of the beauties of organizing a non- profit-making corpora. tion in the state of Michigan. All you have to do is announce that it is for a religious, patriotic or some other high-sounding purpose, pay two dollars to register your organization, and you may legally take in money from anyone you can persuade to shell out. What you do with the money after you get it seems to be your own business; nobody bothers you. When the League of the Little Flower went out of existence it had $3,297.32 in a commercial bank, $27,423.91 in a savings account, and about $5,000 worth of office and household furniture. The household furniture was worth over $1,000, and why the League needed a thousand dollars worth of household furniture to build a church I never could figure out. When Coughlin and his two employees closed shop on the League of the Little Flower, they had almost $31,000 which they had collected from the public. The question I particularly wanted to ask Coughlin was how it happened that money from the League's bank account was used to meet payments on his stock market gambling accounts. I was under the impression, from the specified purposes for which the state permitted him to collect funds, that the money was to maintain his church and to help build a new one, and for no other purpose. I wanted to ask him also just what he meant when, in his radio broadcasts at this same period, he called stock market gambling "shooting craps with other people's money." Let me illustrate. On February 27, 1929, about a year after the priest started to collect for the new church, he bought five hundred shares of Kelsey Hayes Wheel for $30,000 at $60 a share, through Paine, Webber & Co., brokers with offices in the Penobscot Building, Detroit. The subsequent illustrations from his stock market accounts will give an idea of the extent of his "shooting craps with other people's money." However, as I have said, Coughlin refused to see me. The president of the Radio League. of the Little Flower, Edward Kinsky, who operates at the present time out of the offices of a broker interested in money speculation, saw me when I called upon him, but refused to explain what the Radio League did with the million dollars it had collected to date. I was quite impressed by the fact that the beads of these corporations collecting money from the public didn't like to tell what they did with it. Their activities were veiled in mystery. So, since Coughlin wouldn't see me, and the president of the money- collecting Radio League wouldn't talk, I called upon their attorney, Prewitt Semmes. Semmes is the motion-picture type of successful lawyer, a man in the prime of life, meticulously dressed, cool and suave. He is a corporation lawyer and averages about $50,000 a year. "I'll he glad to answer any questions," he said amiably, and when I started to take notes, he suggested: "Why not let me call in my secretary? We'll have an exact record of the questions and answers. Then at the end of the interview you can initial my copy and I'll initial yours." This was quite agreeable, and with his secretary making an exact record of the interview I began by asking him who owned Social Justice magazine. "All of the stock of Social Justice Publishing Company was originally owned by the Radio League of the Little Flower," he said. "There were ten shares involved. These ten were the only ones ever issued out of five hundred authorized." "When did the Radio League acquire ownership of these controlling ten shares?" Semmes called for the Social Justice and Radio League files which he studied carefully. "I don't seem to have it here," he said at last. "I'll have to get that for you." He instructed his secretary to telephone Miss (Eugenia B.) Burke at the Shrine and ask her to get the information from the records. Several times during the interview Semmes referred to the records at the Shrine. The date I had asked about was February 28, 1936, but I was less interested in that than in where the records were kept. Subsequently, even though Semmes had called the Shrine for the records in my presence, both he and Coughlin denied that the records of this privately owned publishing company were kept at the tax-exempt church. Semmes, showed the stenographic notes to Coughlin the day after the interview, and the priest must have hit the ceiling when he saw his lawyer's admissions, for on November 8, 1939, the lawyer sent me a five-page letter in which he said: Father Coughlin did not receive until today the copy of the answers I gave to your questions on Monday, November 6. He got the wrong impression from this interview and if he did it may be that others would also.... The calls [to Social Justice Publishing Co.] do not go through the switchboard at the Shrine office. The books and records, including financial records of Social Justice Publishing Co., are also kept at the Woodward Avenue office of Social Justice Publishing Co. and not at the Shrine. This letter was obviously written at Coughlin's insistence, for not only had Semmes admitted in the interview that records are at the Shrine, but I had official documents which gave the tax-exempt church as the address for the private publishing business. As the interview progressed I found that Semmes, who was attorney not only for Coughlin but for Social Justice Publishing Company and its officers, did not know even the names of the clients he represented. He had to telephone to the Shrine for them. When he got the official records they showed that the ten shares of stock, as I have already explained, were shifted about from Coughlin to the Radio League to Walter Baertschi to the Social Justice Poor Society, Inc. He became a little uncomfortable as the interview touched on delicate aspects of Coughlin's activities, and went into another room to call the priest. When he returned he laughed and said Coughlin had advised him to throw me out. "But I'll use my own judgment on it," he concluded. "I'm glad to hear it," I said, "because there are a lot of questions I want to ask. For instance, does Social Justice Publishing Company, as a profit-making corporation, pay an income tax?" "Oh, sure." "Could you tell me how much?" "I don't know that. I don't make up the tax returns." "You would have those records at the Shrine?" "Yes, at the office." The words slipped out of his mouth apparently before he realized it. He had attached no particular signifiance[sic] to his earlier phone calls to the Shrine for the records, but with this statement he seemed to realize what I was driving at, and he added hastily: "I don't think-well, I'm not sure that the Social Justice office is at the Shrine. It might be at 13 Mile Road and Woodward. Anyway, that's where the figures are available. One place or the other." "What's the address and number of the offices at 13 Mile Road and Woodward?" "I don't know the number. It's on Woodward Avenue at about 13 Mile Road." "I mean, is there a sign so that you know where the offices are?" "No. It's just a dwelling house. It looks just like an ordinary house. There are no signs to advertise what it is. I imagine it is listed in the telephone book." "Shall we look?" I suggested. I had already looked, and I knew it was not in the phone book. Semmes turned the pages of the book, frowned and finally said, "It's not listed." "You mean this big national publishing business doesn't have a telephone at its offices?" "Oh, no," he said quickly. "I mean that the office at 13 Mile Road and Woodward is not listed in here. I mean-to telephone you go through the Shrine. Royal Oak 4122. But the street number at 13 Mile Road and Woodward isn't listed here." "Just how many houses from the corner is this dwelling house?" "I don't know," said the attorney for the publishing house whose address he didn't know. "Have you ever been-" "Yes," he interrupted before I could finish. -That's where the business office is. That's where the publication is edited. That's where Mr. Schwartz's office is." "Are the records kept there, too?" "No, not the financial records. They are kept at the Shrine." "I believe you wrote a letter to the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Detroit that Social Justice is not an organ of the Catholic church." "That's right," he said cautiously. "It has no connection whatever with it. The publishing company is a profit corporation." "Why are the records kept at the Shrine, which is a tax-exempt church?" "They are not kept at the Shrine. They are kept at the business office of the Shrine, which is a small part of the tax-exempt building." "Does any part of the Shrine pay taxes?" "No," he said a trifle irritably. I saw no point in following up this angle. The attorney was all too uncomfortably trying to protect his clients, so I went on to the Radio League which had owned Social Justice. "Is the Radio League profit-making?" I asked. "No," he said, beginning to eye me with some wariness. "Now, if a non-profit-making corporation owns a profit-making corporation like this publishing company, does that exempt the publishing company from taxation?" "Oh, no," he laughed. "Quite the contrary. Social Justice Publishing Company isn't exempt at all." "Would it be legitimate to ask for tax exemption?" "We wouldn't even suggest it," he said with a motion of his hand as if the matter were too absurd even to be considered. "It wouldn't be allowed. There's no basis for asking it." "I happen to have a letter," I said, "which Amy Collins wrote to the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Commission asking for tax exemption on the grounds that it's owned by a non-profit-making corporation." "Now--wait a minute," he said quickly, turning around in his chair. "I haven't gone into the question of unemployment insurance on Social Justice and--and those things because--because I haven't been asked. But," he added with a shrug, "I don't know of any basis which would exempt it although I haven't studied it." "Okay. If you don't know about it, then we can't very well discuss it. But you do know Edward Kinsky, president of the Radio League of the Little Flower who is also the vice president of Social Justice Publishing Company?" "I don't know if he is," said Mr. Kinsky's attorney, who also represents these two corporations. "I'd have to check it." "Let's assume that I'm right until you've checked it. Mr. Kinsky told me you're his personal attorney. What's his business?" "I don't know-" I began to laugh and Semmes added, "I'm only his attorney on business for Social Justice Publishing Company and the Radio League. I don't handle his private affairs. 1 don't know anything about him." "You didn't even know that he was president and vice president of these two corporations--?" "I'm having it checked," he said with a frown. "Do you know Francis Keelon, of Keelon & Company?" "Yes." "Mr. Kinsky works with Mr. Keelon?" "I understand he's in his office but I don't know what he does." "What is Keelon's business?"' "I don't know--" he began. Then he apparently changed his mind and added, "I think he's a trader in commodities." "At the time the National Union for Social Justice was organized by Father Coughlin, wasn't Keelon interested in the Union Party which tried to put Coughlin's man in the White House?" Semmes hesitated a moment and then side-stepped the question a bit lamely. "I know he's always friendly to anything Father Coughlin sponsors," he said. "Are you familiar with the League of the Little Flower?" "There isn't any such thing--" he said quickly. "Not now, but there was." I explained how the League was established and how it collected money "to build a church," how Coughlin used that money to gamble on the stock market. Semmes interrupted me in the middle with "I don't know. I never heard of it." "All right, but you are familiar with the present-day Radio League of the Little Flower which has been collecting money upon assurances that it's a non- political body. Who gave it authority to lend money collected under such promises to a political organization?" "There is no prohibition against lending it to any. one," he said cynically. "In your opinion, it's perfectly all right to receive money through the mails with assurances that it's to he used for a non-political purpose and then lend that money for political purposes?" "Now--" he said, with a swift gesture of his hand, "you're going beyond asking me for an opinion. I say it undoubtedly has the authority, but I wouldn't want to leave the impression that that is what they do, because they don't." "They didn't lend the money to a political organization?" "Not so far as I know." "I believe you drew up the papers for the National Union for Social Justice. Money received by that body was used for political purposes?" "And a report on its receipts and disbursements had to be turned into the Federal Government under the Corrupt Practices Act?" "That's correct." "Did you ever see that report?" "No--" "I happen to have it. That report shows that the National Union for Social Justice repaid a loan of some $99,000 borrowed from the Radio League of the Little Flower. Now, the Radio League gave the public assurances that its contributions were for a non-political organization--" "There's no prohibition whatever against a non-profit or charitable organization lending money to anyone the directors see fit," he said quickly. "I get it, so there's no use going on with that. How about the officers? As a rule all of them seem to he dummy incorporators, as you lawyers call it." "I should say it's a natural thing," he said smoothly. "It's like the few corporations in which my friends and I are interested. We don't have any outside people in them." "Then the directors and trustees of these various corporations are employees, but the control is really in the hands of Father Coughlin?" "Not legally"-- his words were cautious--"but--as I say--they naturally--actually--of course, as I say, it would be extraordinary if it were any other way." "I guess that's that," I said, motioning to the girl that the interview was over. There was little more that could be got from the attorney. He had admitted that the private publishing business, which "is not, and never was, an organ of the Catholic church," was using tax-exempt church property in which to conduct its business. The attorney was willing to admit that money collected through the mails upon definite assurances that it was for non- political purposes was nevertheless used for a political organization, and he viewed it cynically with an attitude of "So what? There's no law against it." The attorney admitted that the various officers and directors of the Coughlin corporations collecting money from the public were "dummies" and the attitude was the same: "So what? We don't want anyone else horning in on it." When the girl left to type her notes we continued talking informally about Coughlin. During the conversation I casually asked Semmes if he had ever met Ben Marcin. (Ben Marcin, according to Social justice, is a Jew who writes a lot of anti-Semitic stuff for the magazine.) Semmes glanced at me, his eyes twinkling. "No, I never did," he said with a faint smile. Then just as casually as I had brought up the name, he asked: "Is there such a person?" "'No," I said. "There isn't. It's a phony." "Well," he said quickly, "I wouldn't know anything about that. I wouldn't know anything about that." The identity of Ben Marcin was one of the points about which I wanted to question the radio priest. When Coughlin launched his anti-Semitic campaign, "Ben Marcin" made his appearance, announcing that he was a Jew. It was under this alleged Jew's signature that some of the most vicious anti-Semitic propaganda appeared in Social Justice. Efforts to locate Ben Marcin were fruitless. Some people erroneously attributed Marcin's work to Boris Brasol, who helped spread the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the United States. Coughlin, with his tongue in his cheek, promptly offered a fabulous reward to anyone who could prove that Boris Brasol was Ben Marcin. The priest was safe in offering it, for there is no such person. I have a complete list of all Social Justice employees, and this name does not appear. I have a complete list of all payments made for articles, and no payments were ever made to Ben Marcin. It's just one of Coughlin's cheerful little propaganda tricks. The stuff signed by the non- existent Ben Marcin is written by E. Perrin Schwartz, editor of the magazine, and Joseph Patrick Wright, one of its editorial employees. The whole story is pointedly told by H. Lodge Robertson, superintendent of the Detroit plant of Arnold Powers, Inc., where the art work and the layout for Social Justice are prepared before the printing of the magazine. Let me quote Mr. Robertson's affidavit: I, H. Lodge Robertson, being duly sworn, do depose and say that I reside at the Park Avenue Hotel in the City of Detroit. I was employed by Arnold Powers, Inc., located at 550 W. Lafayette Blvd., for a period of six and one-half months from March 3, 1939, to Sept. 9, 1939, as superintendent of the plant. Arnold Powers, Inc., is engaged under contract with Social Justice. Publishing Co. to design all of the art work and general layout of Social Justice magazine, to set the type and make it up in pages, copies of which are furnished in suitable form for reproduction in rotogravure or letter-press printing to the Cuneo Press at Chicago, Ill. In the course of my work I was in constant contact and in consultation with Mr. E. Perrin Schwartz, who is the editor of Social Justice magazine. I heard the recent broadcast by Father Charles Coughlin at which time he offered a reward for proof that Ben Marcin, contributor to Social Justice magazine and author of numerous articles on the subject of the validity of the Protocols of Zion, and one Boris Brasol, were one and the same person. On the Friday following the broadcast referred to, I held my regular conference with Mr. E. Perrin Schwartz and I asked him who Ben Marcin was. He laughingly replied that there was no such person as Ben Marcin, but that it was a name used by various members of the staff of the paper in writing articles where it was desired that the author appear to be someone other than a member of the staff of Social Justice magazine. In this particular instance the name "Marcin," which had been previously used on other articles, other than those dealing with the Protocols of Zion, was composed of the combined initials of several members of the staff of Social Justice magazine, and that the name "Ben" was added to give the fictitious Marcin the proper Jewish flavor. I was told by Mr. Schwartz that the articles on the validity of the Protocols of Zion were prepared by Mr. Schwartz himself, in collaboration with Mr. Joseph Patrick Wright, another member of the staff. He said that Father Coughlin was perfectly safe in offering the reward, as it would be utterly impossible for anyone to claim it. And the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin called President Roosevelt a liar! pp. 80-105 ----- 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! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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