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Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio
In 1926, Father Charles Coughlin established The Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan. Over the course of the next four decades, Coughlin built this small Catholic church into a large, ornate, highly profitable and, to many, infamous mecca. Coughlin began his radio career in the late 1920s with a weekly broadcast known popularly as "The Children's Hour," in which he told biblical stories to children. While these early programs were merely the tame sermons of a parish priest, they soon became paranoid political tirades. The program became known as "The Hour of Power," and by the late thirties it was the most controversial broadcast in America. Coughlin used the program and the new medium of radio to command an army of the disaffected. By giving expression to their basest fears and hatreds, he virtually created the "lunatic fringe," a new American phenomenon that inspired hate mobs to go on violent rampages and encouraged self-styled fascist organizations like the Christian Front and the German-American Bund to plot the downfall of the federal government and the disenfranchisement of American Jews.
Based on more than twenty years of research, including unprecedented access to FBI and Catholic Church archives, Radio Priest is a definitive and timely biography, including revelations of Coughlin's ties to the Nazis and to fascist leaders such as Mussolini and the English aristocrat Oswald Mosley.
In April 1995, after home-grown American extremists were arrested for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City, stories about obscure radio personalities like Mark Koernke (Mark from Michigan) began appearing in The New York Times, asking if slogans like Koernke's "I love my country. I fear my government" could have incited such violence. But as Donald Warren argues in Radio Priest, to understand the paranoid fringe, one must understand its populist, deeply American roots.
Based on more than twenty years of research, including unprecedented access to FBI and Catholic Church archives, Radio Priest is a definitive and timely biography, including revelations of Coughlin's ties to the Nazis and to fascist leaders such as Mussolini and the English aristocrat Oswald Mosley.
In April 1995, after home-grown American extremists were arrested for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City, stories about obscure radio personalities like Mark Koernke (Mark from Michigan) began appearing in The New York Times, asking if slogans like Koernke's "I love my country. I fear my government" could have incited such violence. But as Donald Warren argues in Radio Priest, to understand the paranoid fringe, one must understand its populist, deeply American roots.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1996
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June 9, 2025“In the early 1990s, the rapid rise of conservative talk radio soon helped foster the growth of a new wave of right-wing American extremism, and this apparently led Michigan sociology professor Donald Warren to publish Radio Priest in 1996, focused exactly on that aspect of Coughlin’s career, carrying the harsh subtitle ‘Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio.’
Warren even opened his book with a discussion of the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history. Right-wing militant Timothy McVeigh was eventually convicted and executed for that crime, and the author associated that 1990s incident with the 1940 arrest of eighteen members of Coughlin’s paramilitary Christian Front organization.
Warren was obviously intensely hostile to Coughlin for ideological reasons, but he was quite willing to concede the formidable political influence of his subject, explaining that some of the latter’s most successful achievements came even after his 1936 election debacle.
For example, Warren explained that in early 1938 FDR asked Congress to pass a major restructuring of the federal government called the Reorganization Act, and this legislation initially enjoyed fairly strong support in that overwhelmingly Democratic body. But once Coughlin went on the airwaves to denounce it, a ‘staggering’ 100,000 angry telegrams flooded into Washington against the proposal, completely overwhelming the wire services, while major rallies were held in New York City and popular delegations poured into DC to lobby against it. So the bill went down to defeat, with even the New York Times conceding that the outcome marked one of Coughlin’s greatest political victories, and other observers suggested that it had dealt ‘a shattering blow to FDR’s prestige.’
Warren also described the extensive network of members of Congress who were close to the radio priest, and these included Pat McCarran of Nevada and Everett Dirksen of Illinois, both of whom later became leading political figures associated with McCarthy. Whenever Coughlin visited DC, he was invited to stay at the home of Vice President John Nance Garner. Meanwhile, starting in the early 1930s a long parade of prominent foreign figures had regularly visited Coughlin’s church in political pilgrimages, including a German chancellor, Randolph Churchill, and the newly designated premier of Alberta, Canada. One of Britain’s leading literary figures, Catholic conservative Hilaire Belloc, later began writing an exclusive series of articles for Coughlin’s Social Justice.”
-Ron Unz, “Father Coughlin”
Warren even opened his book with a discussion of the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history. Right-wing militant Timothy McVeigh was eventually convicted and executed for that crime, and the author associated that 1990s incident with the 1940 arrest of eighteen members of Coughlin’s paramilitary Christian Front organization.
Warren was obviously intensely hostile to Coughlin for ideological reasons, but he was quite willing to concede the formidable political influence of his subject, explaining that some of the latter’s most successful achievements came even after his 1936 election debacle.
For example, Warren explained that in early 1938 FDR asked Congress to pass a major restructuring of the federal government called the Reorganization Act, and this legislation initially enjoyed fairly strong support in that overwhelmingly Democratic body. But once Coughlin went on the airwaves to denounce it, a ‘staggering’ 100,000 angry telegrams flooded into Washington against the proposal, completely overwhelming the wire services, while major rallies were held in New York City and popular delegations poured into DC to lobby against it. So the bill went down to defeat, with even the New York Times conceding that the outcome marked one of Coughlin’s greatest political victories, and other observers suggested that it had dealt ‘a shattering blow to FDR’s prestige.’
Warren also described the extensive network of members of Congress who were close to the radio priest, and these included Pat McCarran of Nevada and Everett Dirksen of Illinois, both of whom later became leading political figures associated with McCarthy. Whenever Coughlin visited DC, he was invited to stay at the home of Vice President John Nance Garner. Meanwhile, starting in the early 1930s a long parade of prominent foreign figures had regularly visited Coughlin’s church in political pilgrimages, including a German chancellor, Randolph Churchill, and the newly designated premier of Alberta, Canada. One of Britain’s leading literary figures, Catholic conservative Hilaire Belloc, later began writing an exclusive series of articles for Coughlin’s Social Justice.”
-Ron Unz, “Father Coughlin”
August 5, 2016
Trumpism: The Prequel.
October 13, 2020
The story of a demagogue and an American maker of chaos.
History textbooks often devote a few lines to Coughlin as a rabble-rouser in the early years of FDR's term who supported (but eventually turned against) him. However, Warren's book shows that there is more to the man than just this fact.
A fascinating portion of the book came from the study of the emergence of anti-Semitism in Coughlin's radio broadcasts - although his references were oblique and he focused his attacks on the "moneychangers" and the wealthy men of his times, his hatred of the Jews became more pronounced after the 1936 election (where he tried and failed miserably to run a third-party campaign against FDR) and ran in parallel with his embrace of fascism (and Hitler in particular). The climax of this shift came in his December 1938 broadcast after Kristallnacht - instead of condemning the attack on Jews as an unprovoked and barbaric assault on a persecuted minority, Coughlin chose to "justify" Nazi aggression against the Jews (which lost him a lot of support among the wider public).
His anti-Semitism and fiery denunciations of Jews were not without consequences - I was surprised to read about the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the late 1930s (for instance, although many condemned Kristallnacht, few were willing to take in Jewish refugees) and about the violence that Coughlin inspired against Jews. Both his radio presence and his newspaper (Social Justice) served as mouthpieces for his hate.
What shut Coughlin was WWII and the necessity of not having a Nazi-adjacent American presence stirring up trouble and defeatism for the US. He was eventually forced to give up control of his newspaper Social Justice and was silenced by his Detroit diocese. After 1942, Coughlin ceased to be a preeminent face in American politics.
Coughlin's story serves as a reminder of the power of an individual to stir up hate against a minority and of the consequences that come about from failing to nip a demagogue in the bud. A highly recommended read for anyone interested in the times and in the history of populism in the 1930s.
History textbooks often devote a few lines to Coughlin as a rabble-rouser in the early years of FDR's term who supported (but eventually turned against) him. However, Warren's book shows that there is more to the man than just this fact.
A fascinating portion of the book came from the study of the emergence of anti-Semitism in Coughlin's radio broadcasts - although his references were oblique and he focused his attacks on the "moneychangers" and the wealthy men of his times, his hatred of the Jews became more pronounced after the 1936 election (where he tried and failed miserably to run a third-party campaign against FDR) and ran in parallel with his embrace of fascism (and Hitler in particular). The climax of this shift came in his December 1938 broadcast after Kristallnacht - instead of condemning the attack on Jews as an unprovoked and barbaric assault on a persecuted minority, Coughlin chose to "justify" Nazi aggression against the Jews (which lost him a lot of support among the wider public).
His anti-Semitism and fiery denunciations of Jews were not without consequences - I was surprised to read about the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the late 1930s (for instance, although many condemned Kristallnacht, few were willing to take in Jewish refugees) and about the violence that Coughlin inspired against Jews. Both his radio presence and his newspaper (Social Justice) served as mouthpieces for his hate.
What shut Coughlin was WWII and the necessity of not having a Nazi-adjacent American presence stirring up trouble and defeatism for the US. He was eventually forced to give up control of his newspaper Social Justice and was silenced by his Detroit diocese. After 1942, Coughlin ceased to be a preeminent face in American politics.
Coughlin's story serves as a reminder of the power of an individual to stir up hate against a minority and of the consequences that come about from failing to nip a demagogue in the bud. A highly recommended read for anyone interested in the times and in the history of populism in the 1930s.
February 10, 2022
A good biography of Fr. Coughlin. I've read about Fr. Coughlin before (Brinkley's "Voices of Protest") but I wanted a more in depth treatment of this most interesting subject. I've become more and more interested during recent years in the issues that were important during the 1930's. The war (WW2) seems to have silenced many of the voices and discussions that were extremely popular and important in the run up to the war. After the war we've gotten little else but propaganda, being told what we should think and believe, and how we should behave, by all media, government, academic, and cultural authorities. And yet it seems as though the issues of the 193os are still with us. Even now they are raising their heads, and are drawing millions of new followers, on both sides. The epithets "Fascist!" and "Communist!" are as popular today as they were during the 1930's except, as Fr. Coughlin predicted, the Communists now have the upper hand and have, essentially, as of 2022, nearly total control of the world powers and are rapidly building their "prison planet" new world order. As the author of this book warned (in 1996) the ideology of Fr. Coughlin and his tens of millions of followers hasn't gone away. Today many young people are taking up the resistance to this Communist new world order, even as Big Tech and Big Government attempts to silence them, just as they once silenced Fr. Coughlin. Who will win this time around? No one knows. But perhaps the tables could be turning on the Communists. We will see.
June 23, 2024
Good, in-depth dive into some aspects of Coughlin's life, but it is poorly organized.
Frequently skips back and forth in time within chapters, leading to a lot of confusion of the timeline (with the exception of the last 2 chapters).
A significant portion of the book details the lives of people and events related to Coughlin that doesn't add much to his story. Felt like filler.
Spelling and grammatical errors throughout the book on occasion were really jarring.
Needs a better Editor/Publisher.
As a positive, this book was clearly well researched and significant effort was made to tell an overview of this man's life.
Lastly, instead of getting a feeling of who this man was personally, it only explored who he was publically, which itself was confusing given that even the author admits Coughlin was full of contradictions and lies. I end this book feeling empty.
Frequently skips back and forth in time within chapters, leading to a lot of confusion of the timeline (with the exception of the last 2 chapters).
A significant portion of the book details the lives of people and events related to Coughlin that doesn't add much to his story. Felt like filler.
Spelling and grammatical errors throughout the book on occasion were really jarring.
Needs a better Editor/Publisher.
As a positive, this book was clearly well researched and significant effort was made to tell an overview of this man's life.
Lastly, instead of getting a feeling of who this man was personally, it only explored who he was publically, which itself was confusing given that even the author admits Coughlin was full of contradictions and lies. I end this book feeling empty.
August 24, 2021
History repeats itself. What is past is prologue. Alright, I know. But here is as story of a leader who exploited the fears of many in a time of economic hardship and challenge, with a message fueled by hate and fascist solutions. Hatred of the Jews did not begin in the United States in Charlottesville. Charles Coughlin was a Catholic priest who amassed a following of millions pointing his venom dipped finger at the other. His empire a radio network; imagine his power with the internet and twitter. Politicians respected then feared him, and church leaders to the Vatican were reluctant and frustrated in dealing with him.
February 6, 2023
Interesting but only because I have lived in Metro Detroit for 54 years. I have attended a wedding at the Shrine of the Little Flower; it's a beautiful structure with a unique architectural style for its altar area. I have driven by the stunning Shrine over a thousand times. Coughlin ("Cawg-lin") was a Canadian emigre who began his ministry in MI and became a political, economic, pro-Nazi priest in Royal Oak, MI.
Should be a shocking read for Catholics.
Should be a shocking read for Catholics.
August 17, 2024
Fascinating subject but I read it before bed to make me sleepy. Coughlin got so much mail that a post office branch has to be put in royal oak. He was certainly a Nazi sympathizer, if not directly paid to be a propagandist. Also, he encouraged Christian nationalist militias. At times, sounded like the county was split into pro and anti coughlin.
December 13, 2023
A lot of research went into this, making it very useful for historians studying the 1930s and the influencers of the time. Father Coughlin was quite the polarizing figure, all the more surprising because he was a priest.
February 11, 2020
Overall an engaging and well-researched read, but would have benefited from greater editorial guidance.
November 10, 2021
Well-researched and extremely relevant. Everyone should learn US history in a way that includes people like this man and their impact on the world then and now.
August 20, 2024
Excellent book about Father Charles Coughlin. I had never heard of him. Glad that I discovered who he was.
March 28, 2018
Major figure not well known now.
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September 23, 2010"RADIO PRIEST: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio by Donald Warren (1996)"
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