The Reverend Charles E. Coughlin (1891-1979), pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower, Royal Oak, Michigan, passed in early Depression days from weekly radio sermons (in a rich dulcet voice) to radio talks on money and economics attacking "international bankers". In 1932, he supported the candidacy of Franklin Roosevelt, proclaiming "Roosevelt or Ruin", but very shortly turned against the New Deal. Increasing anti-Semitic comments, a large tolerance for Hitler's Germany, intemperate attacks on American political leaders, and support for the Union Party's Lemke ticket in 1936 swelled the ranks of his followers but drew reprimands from the Vatican. In 1937, Coughlin was attacked in the Michigan Catholic by the new Archbishop of Detroit, later Edward Cardinal Mooney, but was not completely silenced until federal threats of a sedition trial in 1942.

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