EVERYTHING OLD
Is NEW AGAIN
Some of the
faces and
places that
helped shape .
Detroit Jewish
history as
they were then
and as they
are now.
SILO CHARLIE
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Religious News Service
Assistant Editor
Father Charles Coughlin
had one wish — that Chris-
tian principles of love and
justice would rule the land.
Yet from inside his office
at the Shrine of the Little
Flower Church in Royal
Oak, Father Coughlin spent
many hours in the late 1930s
hosting radio broadcasts and
editing a national weekly,
Social Justice, filled with the
most virulent anti-
Semitism. His radio message
was carried to millions of
listeners in 47 countries.
Born Oct. 25, 1891, in On-
tario, Father Coughlin came
to the United States to teach
at St. Basil's College in
Waco, Texas. He impressed a
Michigan priest, who ar-
ranged for his transfer to a
small parish in Kalamazoo.
In 1926, he was selected to
start a new church in Royal
Oak.
Father Coughlin was de-
termined to make the con-
gregation a success. Con-
tributions for the church
poured in after he made
radio appeals. At one point,
his staff was opening
400,000 letters a week. With
$17 million in donations, he
was able to construct a mas-
sive building, the Shrine of
the Little Flower, at the nor-
thwest corner of 12 Mile and
Woodward. Beside the chur-
ch was a tower with a 28-
foot-high crucifix, where
Father Coughlin made his
radio broadcasts.
"The radio priest" and
"Silo Charlie," as Father
Coughlin was called, soon
began broadcasting more
than just talk of a new chur-
ch. He peppered his pro-
grams with calls for a kind of
social justice that readily
appealed to Americans in
the midst of a depression. He
warned of spreading com-
munism and demanded fi-
nancial security for the
aged; he lambasted unions
and President Franklin
Roosevelt.
Father Coughlin also used
his Social Justice magazine
and radio broadcast, the
"Golden Hour," to lash out
at Jews, who he said were
"in league with the godless
communists bent on usurpa-
tion of all human rights and
the consumption of decen-
cy."
He reissued the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion, which
claims that Jews are trying
to control the world. He
blamed Jewish immigrants,
refugees from Nazi persecu-
tion, for taking Americans'
jobs. His Christian Front
organization, established to
combat communism, was
closed to Jews.
The Jewish community
could not ignore Father
Coughlin. Numerous rabbis
and community leaders
spoke out against the radio
priest, and Jewish Chronicle
Editor Philip Slomovitz, in a
1936 editorial, asked the
Catholic Church to put a
stop to Father Coughlin's ac-
tions. Slomovitz also wrote
frequent letters to the priest,
entreating him to end his
anti-Semitic tirades.
The U.S government
helped bring Father
Coughlin's radio career to an
end when it began censoring
his broadcasts in 1940. An-
other factor leading to the
silencing of the radio priest
was Detroit's Cardinal Ed-
ward Mooney. With support
from the Vatican, Cardinal
Mooney denounced Father
Coughlin's attacks on labor
unions and FDR and his
friendly references to Hitler.
Father Coughlin stayed on
as pastor of the Shrine of the
Little Flower until 1966. He
died in October 1979 after a
lingering heart condition,
and was buried at the Holy
Sepulchre Cemetery in
Southfield. He was 88.
Ten years after his death,
Father Coughlin's Shrine of
the Little Flower is a thriv-
ing church. Still standing
beside the building is the
Crucifixion Tower, where
Father Coughlin made his
radio broadcasts. The tower
is no longer used.
THE MIGHTY SLUGGER
Hank Greenberg was
called the mightiest right-
handed slugger in baseball.
He learned to love the sport
in the Bronx, where he
played on makeshift
diamonds in empty lots.
He also was a private in
the U.S. Army and the man
who won the hearts of Jews
worldwide when he refused
to play baseball on Yom
Kippur, instead spending
the day at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek in Detroit.
Greenberg was born in
1911, the son of Rumanian
Father Charles
Coughlin, the outside
of the tower where he
worked, and the room
from which he made
his broadcasts, as it
appears today.