Charles Coughlin - Cancellation of Radio Show

Cancellation of Radio Show

At its peak in the early 1930s Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners. Sheldon Marcus says that the size of Father Couglin's radio audience "is impossible to determine, but estimates range up to 30 million each week". He expressed an isolationist and conspiratorial viewpoint that resonated with many listeners.

Earl Alfred Boyea, Jr. in 1995 showed that the Catholic hierarchy did not approve of Coughlin. The Vatican, the Apostolic Legation in Washington, D.C., and the archbishop of Cincinnati all wanted him silenced. They recognized that only Coughlin's superior, Bishop Michael Gallagher of Detroit, had the canonical authority to curb him, but Gallagher supported the "Radio Priest". Due to Gallagher's autonomy and the prospect of the Coughlin problem leading to a schism, the Roman Catholic leadership let the issue rest.

After giving early support to Roosevelt, Coughlin's populist message contained bitter attacks on the Roosevelt administration. The administration decided that although the First Amendment protected free speech, it did not necessarily apply to broadcasting, because the radio spectrum was a "limited national resource" and regulated as a publicly owned commons. New regulations and restrictions were created specifically to force Coughlin off the air. For the first time, authorities required regular radio broadcasters to seek operating permits. When Coughlin's permit was denied, he was temporarily silenced. Coughlin worked around the restriction by purchasing air-time and having his speeches played via transcription. However, having to buy the weekly air-time on individual stations seriously reduced his reach and strained his resources.

After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Father Coughlin's opposition to the repeal of a neutrality-oriented arms-embargo law triggered more successful efforts to force him off the air. According to Marcus, in October 1939, one month after the invasion of Poland, "the Code Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) adopted new rules which placed rigid limitations on the sale of radio time to 'spokesmen of controversial public issues'". Manuscripts were required to be submitted in advance. Radio stations were threatened with the loss of their licenses if they failed to comply. This ruling was clearly aimed at Coughlin due to his opposition to prospective American involvement in what became known as World War II. As a result, in the September 23, 1940, issue of Social Justice Father Coughlin announced that he had been forced from the air "...by those who control circumstances beyond my reach".

Coughlin reasoned that although the government had assumed the right to regulate any on-air broadcasts, the First Amendment still guaranteed and protected freedom of the written press. He could still print his editorials without censorship in his own newspaper, Social Justice. After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the US declaration of war in December 1941, the anti-interventionist movements (such as the America First Committee) began to sputter out, and isolationists like Coughlin acquired the reputation of sympathy with the enemy. The Roosevelt Administration stepped in again. On April 14, 1942, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle wrote a letter to the Postmaster General, Frank Walker, and suggested the possibility of revoking the second-class mailing privilege of Social Justice, which would make it impossible for Coughlin to deliver the papers to his readers. Walker scheduled a hearing for April 29, which was later postponed until May 4. Meanwhile, Attorney General Biddle was also exploring the possibility of bringing an indictment against Coughlin for sedition. Hoping to avoid a sedition trial, he met with Leo Crowley, who was a close friend of Archbishop Edward Mooney, Bishop Gallagher's successor. Crowley met with the archbishop and, according to Sheldon Marcus, told him "of the government's willingness to deal with Coughlin in a restrained manner if he would order Coughlin to cease his public activities". Consequently, on May 1, Archbishop Mooney ordered Coughlin to stop his political activities and to confine himself to his duties as a parish priest, warning of potential defrocking if he refused. Coughlin complied and remained the pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower until retiring in 1966.

Coughlin died in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1979, at the age of 88.