Well I happened to obtain a rare copy of a magazine that was published in the 1930's called Social Justice. The champion of the magazine was the controversial Catholic priest Father Coughlin from The Shrine of the Little Flower parish in Royal Oak Michigan. I am in no way endorsing the viewpoints or columns in this magazine. I just thought it was important to post them on the internet where they could be accessed by anyone who might be researching this era of American social and political turmoil. There are 20 pages total, posted as jpg. files. Plenty of resolution to increase the magnification enough to read.
I think this is interesting if not very pleasant to read. It gives a pretty clear view of a religious radical American mindset going into World War II. In a nutshell, the commies were the big threat to the USA in 1938 not the Nazis and that the Jews had it coming in Germany for supporting the commies. Yikes. Knowing that millions of Jews were about to be systematically killed by the Germans when this magazine was being distributed makes it seem ghoulish to even read. The link to the whole magazine is here:
Father Coughlin's Social Justice magazine, December 5th 1938.
I am sitting with a hospice client, a man who is 89 years old. This morning he was talking about a Catholic priest whose radio show his father used to listen to. Trying to remember this man's name, he remembered that he was based in Detroit. I punched in that info on Google and Father Coughlin's name appeared."Power Hour from Little Flower" I read to my friend. "That's him." When I read that he was a bigot and an anti-Semite, my friend claimed he didn't remember him that way, only that his father would beg, borrow, or steal the $1.25 for a copy of the Social Justice magazine. Thank you for providing a copy of the zine for us to look at and ponder. I'm interested in reading the product of a demagogue from the 30's who convinced people to pay for propaganda that had the corrosive message of bigotry and anti-Antisemitism. Peace and regards...Jack Hewitt.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback Mr. Hewitt. It isn't a very pleasant read, but I think it is important to have out there for people to see. There is another post featuring a Social Justice interview with Thomas Edison that your client might appreciate as well. Regards, JMS http://pathteacheroneword.blogspot.com/2011/07/thomas-edisons-famous-interview-on.html
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