Consolation, September 20, 1939

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Contents

Smoke-Screen (Part 1) 3

Hierarchy Admits Fascist Alliance 6

Hitler Reveals Order 7

Fight “in Franco’s Way”—Coughlin 8

British Comment

Sir Oswald Mosley 13

Growth of Fascism 13

Bureaucratic Rule in Britain 13

Jews in Britain 14

Irish Terrorists 15

Counsel by J. F. Rutherford

The Snare 16

Manton’s Trail of Human Wreckage 19

Under the Totalitarian Flag

Crucial Point 20

Heil Chester Gannon! 20

Patriotism by Force 20

Bowing Before the Hierarchy 21

Typical Quebec Hypocrisy 22

Where Goes New Zealand? 24

New Government

Hierarchy in Southern Rhodesia 25

To the Jesuitized Hitlerites 27

Kingdom News From France 28

Jehovah’s witnesses in Quebec 29

Index to Volume XX of Consolation 30

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Appetizers

Answer

The prim spinster was dining out, and while the waiter was standing by the table she asked him to find out the title of the piece the orchestra was playing.

Other duties claimed the waiter for a time, and when he returned the spinster had forgotten her request. To her confusion the waiter bent towards her and whispered: “What Can I Do to Make You Love Me?”—Answer’s magazine.

Freer’s Fearful Phrases

If you think you can speak your native language well, just read the following words, commit them to memory, and then say them aloud three times in quick succession:

A school coal-scuttle: a scuttle of school coal.

He sniffs shop snuff. They sniff shop snuff.

A bloke’s back brake-block broke.

Are you copper-bottoming them? No, I’m aluminuming ’em, mum.

Somewhat Behind

At one time, during a season of heavy fog, a London paper offered a prize for the best fog story. This won the prize:

A merchant received a telephone message one morning from one of his clerks. “Hello, Mr. Smith!” said the clerk. “I cannot come down to the shop this morning on account of the fog. I have not yet arrived home yesterday.”

Needed Help

He was, in fact, the absent-minded professor, and he was strap-hanging in a trolley car. The other arm clasped half a dozen bundles. He swayed to and fro. Slowly his face took on a look of apprehension.

“Can I help you, sir?” asked the conductor.

“Yes,” said the professor, with relief. “Hold on to this strap while I get my fare out.”

And Fed Mother Cary’s Chickens

Captain: “Have you cleared the decks and burnished the brass?”

Seaman: “Ay, ay, sir. And I’ve swept the horizon with a telescope.” CONSOLATION

“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.

Volume XX Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, September 20, 1939 Number 522

Smoke-Screen (In Two Parts—Part 1)

THE smoke-screen has been very effective in modern warfare. Many successful offensives have been executed under baffling clouds of vapor produced both on land and on sea to hide or camouflage the objective. The logic behind the use of this device or maneuver is simple, yet deadly: If you do not know where to shoot, defense is impossible. Of course, in the practices of war only partial deception by the smoke-screen was generally accomplished. But history furnishes abundant evidence that in many instances this gave victory to the offensive.

What is here given consideration is not the smoke barrage of military usage, but its counterpart in the news. Here its usage is similar, and often more deadly than bullets. Briefly, the purpose of what is termed the “smoke-screen” in the propagandized press is to cover up or conceal the real objectives of an organization or a movement. Its most devastating effect comes from its use in publications or newspapers considered by the public to be impartial; here it is a weapon of terrible viciousness, incalculable in its power to shield from view the group who employ it. Just as in its use in military strategy, before opponents have found exactly where to focus the counter-attack much of the damage has already been done.

Production of such newspaper fog for deceitful purposes has become a fine art on the part of certain propagandists of the world. The first requisite is the ability and willingness to lie; and the second is a medium accredited by the public, which is to be bamboozled, a medium or news agency which is not likely to poke its nose where it ought not or make a genuine endeavor to uncover the facts. For the latter the American press answers the conditions admirably for the propagandist. As for the first requisite, mastery of lying, there is one institution which has a pre-eminent record in this art of many centuries standing, namely, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. It follows, therefore, that in a study of this more or less modern use of deception, the champion liars should be considered first, and this in connection with the American and other press systems.

A few examples will perhaps clarify the usage of the term “smoke-screen” as applied to press accounts or the news. It has been circulated and repeated enough now to have wide credence in America that the Nazis are viciously persecuting the Catholics in Germany and Austria.* Without even considering the evidence these reports can be readily discredited by observing the absolute harmony between Franco, “the savior of the faith,” Hitler, Mussolini and the pope. When the evidence is added to the examination, note that Catholic writers who have visited Germany and even Hitler himself, who is a devout Catholic, testify to the exact contrary. A photograph reproduced in Consolation No. 515 shows the German dictator coming out of a Catholic church, head bowed and hat in hand. But here lies the devastating effect of this type of smoke-screen: The people have already accepted the LIE that Catholics are persecuted in Germany, their minds are made up, with the result that denials of this absurdity receive scant consideration.

Here the Catholic Hierarchy’s forces of propaganda have achieved a signal success.

* This lie is still repeated to this day although known to be a deliberate falsehood. Herbert Thurston, writing in the Jesuit organ, The Catholic Mind, issue of August 8, 1939, states: “Could anything be more preposterous than the idea that Hitler, for example, is acting in subservience to the Jesuits? He has suppressed their colleges, submitted their publications to a drastic censorship and is gradually driving them out of the Reich.”—Ed. Could anything be more preposterous than the idea that Hitler the Catholic, and the ally of the pope, could be the enemy of the pope’s secret service?

By similar methods they have prevented general exposure of the Papal alliances with the European totalitarian governments and Japan and the Papal responsibility for the Spanish, Ethiopian and Chinese carnage. Because of this SMOKE-SCREEN very few of those who are enemies of Fascism have ever directed their attack upon the chief malefactor, who resides at Vatican City, the PONTIFF of the ROMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY. The enemy did not know where to shoot!

Another use of the smoke-screen is the Hierarchy’s production of what might be called “vaporings” against Coughlin. In order to bamboozle the people Cardinal Mundelein has uttered condemnations of Coughlin and his “rabble-rousing” anti-Semitism; The Voice, Catholic oracle of the diocese of Brooklyn, headlines a rebuke of race hatred and anti-Semitism; “Art Kuhl,” writing in two Catholic papers, the Detroit Sunday Visitor and the Huntington (Ind.) Visitor, dated June 18 and June 25, declares that Catholics are wrong to interfere with freedom of speech, the last article appearing on the very day the Coughlinites raided the great assembly at Madison Square Garden. All of this is very confusing to the people. They do not know for sure whether the Catholic Church is for or against “the Coughlin terror”. Neither the leaders of the liberty-loving Americans nor of the Jews realize that the DANGER lies not in Coughlin the man, but in the mighty organization of Catholic Action, whose slogan, according to Priest O’Brien, is “We are ready prepared for 1940!”

Perhaps these charges demand a little further proof. In The Nation, New York City, issue of July 22, 1939, appears an illuminating exposé of what is entitled “The Coughlin Terror”. This article is recommended to all who love America as “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. Therein is charged that in the New York police force has been developed and promoted by organizers a strong membership of Coughlin agents whose number is variously estimated up to 6,000; that these police fraternize with the Social Justice salesmen and other Coughlinites and protect them in their assaults against opposing groups and individuals. Mayor La Guardia was so stung by this article and an editorial in the same issue calling for action on the part of “La Guardia’s Police” that he answered an angry denial carried in the Times of July 21.

At the time of this denial the mayor had been endeavoring to ignore the circulation of a million Kingdom News by Jehovah’s witnesses which contained a letter to himself calling his attention to the laxity of the police in permitting an attempt to break up their Madison Square Garden assembly of June 25. It was noted in this issue of Kingdom News that when a Coughlinite attacked law-abiding ushers at this Garden the action of the police was to arrest the ushers, three of whom, while endeavoring to preserve order, were arrested and are now under indictment, while all the Coughlinite disturbers are free. Hence there are many people now who find this mere denial by La Guardia slightly insufficient. But to others it acts as further fog in the smoke-screen hiding the fact that the HIERARCHY is backing up and promoting Coughlin’s “rabble-rousing”.

A little reflection on the history of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy furnishes more light on the subject. First, as a general rule and for many centuries they have constantly persecuted the Jews. This sudden change as noted in their attitude towards Coughlin and anti-Semitism is at once open to suspicion. As for favoring freedom of speech, this brings a harsh laugh from any student of the Papacy. Letters received from Coughlinites claim that Archbishop Spellman is solidly behind the movement, and this is corroborated by the fact that the Coughlin movement is recruited almost entirely from the Catholic population. Coughlin’s printed address bears the imprimatur of the archbishop of Detroit. It is therefore at once CLEAR that the purpose of anti-Coughlin pronouncements by Catholic prelates is to cloud the issue, to furnish a SMOKE-SCREEN to hide their promotion of Coughlin.

In small things this fact is easily disclosed. The press dispatches have generally referred to the Madison Square Garden disturbance as caused by references to “Coughlin and the Catholic Church”. The recording of the speech shows otherwise. No reference was made to “Father” Coughlin in the hour’s-length speech anywhere. The concerted booing came at the flash of lights just when reference was made to Hitler and Franco and their “robbing Jews”, and this booing was accompanied by cries of “Heil Hitler”, “Viva Franco,” and “Kill Rutherford”. Many shook crucifixes. Both from letters complaining of mistreatment of Catholics at the Garden and because of the close alliance between Hitler, Franco, and the supreme pontiff of the Catholics it is clear that the Coughlinites are merely special agents of Rome. And it is equally clear that their sympathies are not with the American Democracy even though they carried American flags; that they do not favor free speech, which has been their excuse for picketing YMCA and from which they had just departed to go “break up the Garden lecture”; and that their real sympathies are with the pope and his allies Hitler and Franco.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Coughlin and his organization are not the agent of the pope. That would mean that Coughlin is acting contrary to the pope’s orders. Is this reasonable? Does anyone who knows the power of the Hierarchy think for a moment that their chief executive could not stop one of their lieutenants who was insubordinate? Does the general have to plead with the corporal? Does a single Catholic or anyone else imagine that the “Supreme Pontiff,” who dictates the policies of Europe and whose power has unnerved the American Press and radio, could not prevent a mere priest from attacking the Jews or anybody else, if he wished to do so? An organization which has been accustomed to use rack and torture chamber and which now uses the concentration camp and the firing squad over most of Europe is not likely to dismiss an opponent with mere reprimand, especially a priest who could be so easily dealt with.

Therefore criticism of Coughlin within the Church by his colleagues is another use of the smoke-screen to conceal his direct connection with the Vatican. To have, then, the right picture in mind one must not think of a lone demagogue inciting a wretched element of the populace; but it is necessary to see this organizer as the Hierarchy’s Coughlin doing the will of Rome!

Helping them over the rough spots

Communism

Another bogey used to scare the unintelligent and at the same time have excuse to persecute and kill anti-Catholics is the slogan “Save the world from Communism”. Franco killed hundreds of thousands of Catholics in Spain “saving Spain from Communism”, and, of course, incidentally re-establishing the Hierarchy church in despotic power, that tyrannical power which had impoverished the common people for generations and kept the Catholic grandees in the saddle. Franco is still, according to press accounts, “saving Spain from Communism” by means of an average of one murderous execution every nine minutes.

G. E. R. Gedye states in his book Fallen Bastions that Communism had no power in Germany when Hitler took over; no resistance at all was offered to the Nazi rule. As a correspondent for many years in Austria he demonstrates that the Socialist party of that country was a small factor and very peace-loving. Pierre van Paassen, in his disclosures concerning European events, entitled “Days of Our Years”, shows that there was no danger from Communism in Spain and that the Loyalist party was the electorate of the people, an essentially Catholic people, determined to relieve the misery of the masses by confiscation of the vast estates of the Catholic Church and of the nobility generally known as “grandees”. McGovern, Catholic member of Parliament from Glasgow, corroborated these facts by a personal visit to Spain; and when, in the interests of Spanish Catholics, he publicly protested the soliciting of funds in England and Scotland for the rebel Franco, he was ostraized from the Catholic church. Two days before the Franco rebellion Mussolini, according to Van Paassen, was dropping bombs on Spanish soil. From whom did he receive his orders? The pope, of course.

The “Communism” bogey is used worldwide as excuse to subdue opponents of the Hierarchy. The padlock law of Canada is an example. This law, designed, it is claimed, to prevent Communist meetings by padlocking the homes of avowed Communists, is a powerful weapon to reduce the Hierarchy’s opponents to submission. Where there has not been enough Communism to furnish excuse for such highhanded methods, the Hierarchy has organized the “Communist” smoke-screen. A press dispatch quoted around the world on September 11, 1938, and never denied by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, describes an open gesture of friendship between the pope and the Communist party. Of course, an effort was made to limit the publication to such European countries where it might not spoil the effect of the bogey in America and elsewhere.

Now, with true Hitlerian strategy, the Coughlin Nazi party in America lumps Jews, Jehovah’s witnesses and all others who stand in the way of Catholic Action in America together as Communists. It has been suggested by the Brooklyn Tablet, Coughlin organ, that the speech of Judge Rutherford which has been referred to in connection with the Garden disturbance, and which was devoted exclusively to Bible prophecy and its present-day fulfillment, is “Communism in another dress”. Not daring to make this statement directly, they published it in the form of a letter supposedly written to the paper, but more probably devised in their composing room.

The brilliant but hypocritical Edward Lodge Curran, president of the “International Catholic Truth Society”, speaking for Coughlin on July 23 over radio network, stated that Coughlin was not anti-Semitic and that he was merely anti-Communistic, and praised Coughlin’s stand for freedom of speech and Americanism. On July 9, as reported by many who heard his speech, but which statements he carefully left out of his manuscript, “Father” Coughlin stated that Jehovah’s witnesses were against everything, and if Americans would awake they could destroy them in a day. No doubt just prior to the proposed slaughter all Jehovah’s witnesses would be put in the Communist pen with Jews and any others who had displeased the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. Coughlin is only against Communists, and therefore all those to be destroyed must be labeled “Communist”!

Curran is president of “Catholic Truth”. He favors Catholic freedom of speech, and when he says that Coughlin favors freedom of speech he must not be misunderstood to mean “freedom of speech for all” which the constitution guarantees. He had no criticism to offer about the action of Coughlin’s followers for marching en masse from picketing WMCA in protest for free speech direct to Madison Square Garden with orders from the leader to break up the meeting as they have done in so many other cases. It could hardly be expected that Curran would disapprove, though, as he spent a good deal of his best energies a few years ago in an effort to have the license of radio station WBBR revoked because its facilities were used to expose the Catholic religious racket. WBBR is owned by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, of which Judge Rutherford, the speaker at the Garden, is president. Now the honored Curran’s words can be understood: Freedom of speech only for those who say what the honored Curran wishes to be said, which is what the Hierarchy wishes to be said. All others are “Communists”.

Instructions to Coughlin picketers favor the carrying of the American flag. In their demonstrations on Broadway the picture of their leader is often followed by the American flag. Several of the ruffians at Madison Square Garden on the 25th of June carried small flags. At first it seems strange that hoodlums shrieking for Hitler and Franco and while engaged in an attempt to break up a lawful assembly should apparently display such fervent patriotism. But remember that no lie or deception is too mean for use in the smoke-screen which attempts to hide the most un-American of treacheries, the selling of America to a Nazi priest who recognizes no head except the Vatican!

Hierarchy Admits Fascist Alliance

Now that the Hierarchy considers that it has a throttle grip on the governments of the world, it brazenly declares its alliance with Fascists and totalitarian powers. The smoke-screen has about accomplished its results. Why keep up the deception? If any doubt, let this doubt be dispelled by the plain statements from their own press. The Bellarmine Society, Heythrop College, England, in a publication entitled “Judge Rutherford and the Witnesses of Jehovah”, released in April, 1939, made the significant admission; “Many non-Catholics would agree with Rutherford on a number of points and even some Catholics who have succumbed to Left-wing propaganda, will agree that he [Judge Rutherford] is not far wrong in saying that the Church is in alliance with Fascism. Criticisms of Rutherford, therefore, have to be expressed that no handle is given to Communists, etc. For Communists would be quite ready to ignore, for the moment, the fact that Rutherford regards Communism itself as a child of the Devil. . . . However, if these difficulties are kept well in mind, good work can be done by showing up Rutherford’s fundamental opposition to religion and constituted authority.”

This quotation is a plain admission that they have lied in calling Jehovah’s witnesses Communists and that they have lied in denying their affiliation with the totalitarian governments. Note further statements from the Catholic Herald, London:

Hope for Fascism. Here we have a new movement still in process of development and amenable to friendly contacts, with a social programme already containing so many reforms advocated by the social encyclicals (of the popes) that its platform may be said to consist very largely of Catholic planks. . . . British-Fascism stands for the Corporate State, the social-economic system favoured by Catholic Austria, Catholic Italy, Catholic Portugal and Catholic Spain. . . . Furthermore, through a reformed upper house, British Fascism invites the official co-operation of the Catholic Church to the end that the government may have guidance in this very matter.

Also we quote from the Catholic Herald of May 12, 1939:

Action! Action! Action! There is a growing sense that Catholicity in Great Britain is on the eve of great happenings.

In this connection it is interesting to note that Franz von Papen, German statesman and the Catholic instrumental in both the signing of the Concordat between Hitler and the pope and manipulating the later rape of Austria, stated in Der Völkischer Beobachter, January 14, 1934:

The Third Reich is the first power which not only recognizes, but which puts in practice the high principles of the Papacy.

Fascism is the instrument for Papal aggressions. Why? One interesting explanation of this Papal method is contained in this summary of Rome’s alliance with Franco and the proposed purpose. Writes Van Paassen*:

“There should have been no surprise, therefore, when the Vatican took the side of Franco in the civil war in Spain. Franco attacked the emerging democratic regime with the aid of the Fascists of Germany and Italy and with the intention of turning Spain into a totalitarian state with a totalitarian religion. For today Rome considers the Fascist regime the nearest to its dogmas and interests.”

Coughlin is in full accord with this view. And why not? The policies of the corporate or totalitarian states emanate from and are dictated by Rome. Her objective is world rulership. The Scriptures disclose that in this she will succeed for a time.

A press dispatch of June 7, 1939, throws considerable light on the use of the smoke-screen and the utter faithlessness of the propagandist, and this in connection with Bolshevism or Communism. This was Hitler’s “victory parade speech” celebrating the return of the Condor Legion of 15,000 Germans who had their share in the Franco butchery. The New York Times carried this account under the headlines: “Hitler Hails Deeds of His Men in Spain as Lesson to Foes”; “Admits He Sent Troops”; “Christian Democracies, not Bolshevism, Are Targets in Victory Parade Speech.” Now that Spain lay prostrate in its own blood, disguise was no longer necessary. A few quotations further elucidate how the world was fooled:

BERLIN, June 6.—Simultaneously with her ally, Italy, Greater Germany today formally celebrated the conclusion of her successful intervention in Spain, when the Condor Legion, some 15,000 strong, held its victory parade before Chancellor Adolf Hitler. . . .

Dispatched secretly to fight under the camouflage of Spanish uniforms, and long publicly denied by its own government, the legion was at last able today to pass openly in pride of victory under the eyes of its own Führer. . . .

HITLER REVEALS ORDER

In his speech Herr Hitler publicly proclaimed what for three years the whole German propaganda apparatus had vehemently denied; namely, that he himself had given the order sending the legion to Spain.

Declaring that Generalissimo Francisco Franco “was facing a conspiracy that was fed from all parts of the world”, Herr Hitler, according to The Associated Press, added: “In July, 1936, I decided immediately to fulfill an appeal for help that that man addressed to me.”

* Days of Our Years, page 465. A footnote on this page states: “Bermanos relates that in the Balearic Islands the clergy, with the help of the insurgent military, forced backsliders into the confessionals on pain of death.” These islands are Mediterranean possessions of Spain.

dressed to me to such an extent and for just as long as the rest of the world gave its support to the internal enemies of Spain.”

But whereas the legion was assembled and dispatched under the slogan, “War against Bolshevism,” it now learns from Herr Hitler’s speech on its return that Bolshevism is no longer mentioned as the enemy, but rather the “Christian democracies” generally, and Great Britain particularly.

Fight “in Franco’s Way”—Coughlin

Coughlin has the absolute backing of the Vatican. When America’s liberties lie under the heel of Rome, together with the corpses of those who have opposed the Hierarchy, no doubt the pope will thank Coughlin as he has recently thanked Franco, and, the carnage having accomplished its results, he will again declare himself unalterably in favor of peace. That is how the smoke-screen worked in Spain’s case, and America is the next sheep headed for the ax. The signs are unmistakable. So, when Coughlin stated in his speech of July 30 that his “Christian Front” was ready to fight Communism “in Franco’s way if necessary”, he meant this: “The pope and all the totalitarian countries are with us. America hasn’t got a chance, and we are going to take it and make it subject to the Vatican by killing everybody that gets in our way, just as Franco did. We will be the judges just as Franco was as to how many thousands need to be killed. All those we kill we will call Communists.” Instead of being an exaggeration, this is really an understatement of what Franco did; and, according to Coughlin, that is exactly the pope’s design for these United States of America.

“Pope of Peace”

Some amazing examples of lying in official circles have hitherto been examined. But for barefaced, shameless hypocrisy the following Associated Press dispatch from the “Supreme Pontiff” should be given a superior position:

Vatican City, March 17 [1939]. Pope Pius XII adopted his coat of arms today. The seal bears the traditional tiara and crossed keys under which is a dove bearing an olive branch, imposed on a background of sky, earth and water. The meaning is peace on land, sea and in the air.

Even Catholics who take this falsehood to be infallible truth must agree that, with great opportunities, the pope has not achieved any tangible results for peace. He was silent when the Clerico-Fascists, the pope’s party in Austria, before the Nazis took over, were destroying workers’ homes in February, 1934. These homes were destroyed by howitzers or trench mortars while they were packed with men, women and children. It was not time to speak of peace while Ethiopia and China were being desolated by his allies. Nor could he afford to prevent Franco from his work of “Defender of the Faith”, whose conversions to Catholicism were achieved by the machine gun. How fittingly descriptive of the Papal pronouncement are the words of Jeremiah 6:14: “Saying, Peace, peace: when there is no peace.”

“Franco’s Way”

Outside of destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of Catholics and others, what did Franco achieve? Was it the freedom which Coughlin demands? Certainly not. The most uninformed know that he brought back the official Catholic religion to the prostrate country and wiped out all freedom under a dictatorship sponsored by the pope. Note the definition of Fascism by G. E. R. Gedye in his excellent commentary on European conditions: “Fallen Bastions”: “Fascism is the international form which reactionary capitalism in Spain the Roman Catholic Church and the Catholic nobility were the great capitalists has employed everywhere when it proved impossible to deprive the masses, by other means, of power which they legally obtained at parliamentary elections.” Here is an Englishman writing in Austria who exactly corroborates the words of a Dutchman writing in Spain. One paragraph by Pierre van Paassen in his heart-rending description of the poverty which the Government attempted to alleviate and in which attempt they were countered by Franco’s Papal rebellion is unforgettable*:

• Days of Our Years, page 425.

I have seen religious processions in 1931, one in Seville and one in Saragossa, still another in Caceres, a small town where there were thirty-eight monasteries, the one standing next to the other in an endless row like the cathedrals in the Kremlin of Moscow, processions, carrying a golden-diademed statue of the Virgin which was literally buried under jewels, diamonds, rubies, smaragds and other precious stones, including decorations and stars of the kind worn by victorious generals and diplomats on their gala uniforms. Priests in golden vestments walked under baldachins [canopies] of purple and damask, swinging censers of silver and filigree, preceded by banners of silk and jewel-studded croziers, surrounded by lace-wearing acolytes [attendants], train bearers and boys in violet soutanes [robes] carrying glittering boxes containing relics, followed by a monstrance [receptacle for displaying the host] of a value of three million pesetas [more than half a million dollars] that burst upon the eye like a cluster of diamonds. And looking on, pouring from the putrid alleys of the Triana quarter in Seville, and saluting the Real Presence by dropping on their knees, I have seen hollow-cheeked, ragged, barefooted Magdalenes, the disheveled women, the unkempt hungry children, the very flesh and blood of Jesus.

Tourists’ agencies did not lead their clientele to the Triana, to the so-called “Chinese City” in Barcelona, or to the even more evil slums of Madrid, Murcia and Granada.

Consider his further descriptions of conditions in the rurals which were owned in feudal tyranny by the Hierarchy’s church and grandees or Catholic nobility. The great citrus-growing of Spain was in complete control of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy’s church. Says Van Paassen*:

I visited orange plantations in May, 1936, in Andalusia where pickers received four pesetas [about 50 cents] a day for sixteen hours’ work. On one property a strike was in progress because a quarter peseta was being deducted from the daily wage for the water taken at mealtime from the owner’s well. Yet in Seville, the directors of the Citrus trust, of which the Catholic Church was the richest and most influential member, cried out that “the Bolsheviks” were filling the heads of the people with outrageous ideas. The civil guard shot down the strikers as if they were cattle.

Van Paassen’s description of conditions on the landed estates reminds one of feudal and medieval history**:

The peasants were not allowed on these rich estates. Armed guards were posted all along the roads and in the woods, ready to spring into action if the hungry and poverty-stricken masses should make an attempt to occupy the seigneurial farms. Even the gathering of chestnuts and acorns on the properties of the nobles and abbots was forbidden, as it had been since time immemorial. Caught in the act of snaring a rabbit or a squirrel or picking off a crow, the “poacher” were shot down without mercy. This had been the law of the land for ages. The Republic [which has now been crushed by Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the pope while the rest of Europe hid under the bed in terror] could not change this overnight. For the seigneurs still had too many friends in the Cortes of 1934, dominated as it was by Lerroux and Gil Robles.

There were no schools in Las Hordas [near Madrid], except a room adjoining the village churches [Catholic] where children were taught prayers and catechism. Ninety percent of the adults were illiterate. I heard there the story of two Socialist doctors, the only medical men in fifty years to have come to settle and practise in an area of more than a hundred square miles inhabited by half a million people. These two medical practitioners had been driven out by the Civil Guards upon a denunciation by the Catholic clergy that they were advocating birth control. They probably were, considering the fact that in spite of the injunction to be “fruitful and multiply it was difficult to see how the people of Las Hordas could be driven still deeper into shame and human degradation by having more children. These people literally possessed nothing except a profound respect for what General Franco was to call the “traditional morality.” For although the seigneurial estates which could have given them bread were not even exploited agriculturally, but merely kept as hunting domains, these starvelings would humbly apply for work to the major-domos, who had been left in charge. They were refused. Even the great hunting parties at which the peasants were engaged as beaters had been suspended in 1934. The seigneurs were in Paris, in Fontainebleau, where Victoria Ena had set up her court, or in Deauville and Biarritz following Alfonso around the cocktail bars. No work of any kind was to be provided as long as a “Red” government (the agrarian-Fascist government of Gil Robles) remained in power in Madrid.

It was in this section, relatively close to the nation’s capital, that Alfonso, the year before his abdication, found the people living on roots and herbs.

* Days of Our Years, page 428.

** Same, page 426.

Popular Front

This was before 1936. In that year the Republic elected the Popular Front to office. And here lies the real cause of Franco’s rebellion. The Popular Front applied “the only measure that could have brought alleviation: confiscation of the feudal estates and their division amongst the peasants”. As the priests still supported the feudal regime and were a part of this regime which the people had voted out, some few of them felt the people’s ire when they attempted to stop the process of liberation. In Robledillo the estate of a grande was seized and the major-domo met the people who had a right to it with a salvo of bullets. Several peasants were killed, but that night the chateau was burned, and the defenders, including the village priest, were disemboweled with pitchforks.

In another instance a corporal of the Popular Front desired a civil wedding, which the law provided for but which was never the custom in the rurals, the priests always officiating.

His friends and relatives tried to dissuade him, but at last the ceremony was arranged for. On the day of the wedding the priest appeared at the town hall and said that the young man’s prospective bride would be the same as a prostitute if “she married without the rites of the church”. The corporal beat up the priest, but was imprisoned. The people set him free and burned up the vicarage and the church. Many in a battle that followed lost their lives, on both sides.

“The government of the Frente Popular, which had come to power in a legitimate constitutional manner, as the results of elections held under the auspices of the preceding reactionary government of Señor Gil Robles, represented the very opposite of a dictatorship.”**

Now this meant that the people by their vote had duly kicked out the church and the nobles as property owners and this had been done by an essentially Catholic nation. Now was the time when the Roman Catholic Hierarchy must needs use Fascism to reverse the adverse judgment which the “Church” had received at the polls. Note that Fascism is the tyrannical opposite of freedom, “the international form which reactionary capitalism” customarily uses when it is unable to control the masses otherwise. Fascism is also the pope’s weapon; and realizing that rich investments were to be lost in a country which the “Church” had impoverished for centuries, the Franco rebellion was plotted and carried out. Hitler and Mussolini were commanded to give aid, and other countries, by adroit diplomacy, were kept hands off. The result is that Spain has been returned to the Catholic Hierarchy serfdom which the Popular Front valiantly resisted. Spain is a shambles, and the Inquisition is drinking Spanish blood at the rate of one “heretic” killed every nine minutes.

In the nature of things most of those slain in Franco’s tribunals are Catholics; but they are Catholics whom the pope does not like. They were Popular Frontists who preferred that the Church of Rome be deprived of some of her riches that their friends, the masses and the peasants, might not starve to death. So Fascism was invoked so that these “Bolsheviks” could be eliminated and Catholic Action beat another republic into submission at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. That is Franco’s way, which is the pope’s way.

* These incidents are paraphrased from Days of Our Years, pages 430, 431.

** Same, page 431.

The Pope’s Coughlin

It seems appropriate now to consider the Hierarchy’s American agent, “Father” Coughlin, since he has declared his intention to fight in “Franco’s way”. The following press dispatch carried by the Cincinnati Enquirer has this to say about the priest’s July 30 broadcast:

Monday, July 31, 1939.

COUGHLIN SAYS U. S. GROUP READY

TO FIGHT “FRANCO WAY”

WARNS UNITS BEING FORMED

TO COMBAT COMMUNISM

By the United Press.

DETROIT, July 31.—The Rev. Charles E. Coughlin in his regular Sunday address warned that a Christian front in the United States is ready to combat Communism “in Franco’s way if necessary”.

Father Coughlin said it was the Christian front that composed the Nationalist forces of Gen. Francisco Franco in the Spanish war.

Addressing the “popular front,” Father Coughlin asked:

“Do you want history to repeat itself in America or are you ready to repent and admit that you and your breed have no place beneath the Stars and Stripes?

“If you persist in carrying on your fight by denying us liberty of speech, liberty of press and, consequently, liberty in politics, we will fight you in Franco’s way if necessary.”

It is also reported by this paper that Coughlin, on September 24, 1936, used these words in an address at Crosley Field before National Union for Social Justice supporters:

“When the time comes in 1940, when there is one party and a dictatorship, I shall be the first to ask you to put aside your ballots and use bullets.”

Der Tog (The Day) as being in 1940 was some time ago spoken of by Priest O’Brien as reported in the Philadelphia L’Aurora. In “The Coughlin Terror”, an article above referred to, of the July 22, 1939, issue of The Nation, a New York policeman said the Christian Front was waiting for the Day. It is no doubt the same Day which the Gold Shirts, Mexican Fascists under the schismatic pope of Mexico, Eduardo I, is plotting as reported by New Masses, issue of August 1, 1939. Americans may smile complacently at the thought of America becoming Fascist, but in this they err. The Hierarchy is desperately determined to control the world, and the submission of the United States is required.

Mind you, now, what Coughlin demands: freedom political and religious, privileges that the democracy has accorded him in abundance; yet he froths at the mouth demanding more, that he might wreck these privileges as Franco has done in Spain. Here is the spectacle of a Canadian priest, in the employ of the most undemocratic institution under the sun, which is headed by an Italian dictator, howling for more freedom in the United States that he might destroy the nation which has been his benefactor. He demands freedom for his party, that he might destroy this for others. He charges that the “popular front” is Communistic, which is exactly in line with Franco’s attack on the Frente Popular except that in America there is neither “popular front” nor Communism. His purpose is to convince the people that there is an enemy in their midst, then start shooting; and if, when the bodies are picked up and are found to be all anti-Papists, what matter? The victory will be achieved. It will only be necessary then to have the pope congratulate and honor him as a “defender of the faith”, have the Inquisition invoked, and the Franco cycle is complete.

Here is plain evidence that the priesthood warps the mind so that no inequality or tyranny seems unreasonable. Let the nation take warning that when an agent of the Vatican demands more freedom in order to build up a party to reduce to ashes all the hard-earned liberties bought by the blood of our forefathers he should be treated as a common enemy. Neither the Roman Catholic Hierarchy nor any of its representatives has any business in a democracy; and every self-governing republic that has nurtured or even tolerated them has had ample cause to regret. Of this the pages of history, some but recently written, as in Spain, record bloody and abundant proof.

Coughlin the Gangster

The following estimate of Coughlin’s character is furnished by Propaganda Analysis, June 1 (1939) issue, in an article entitled “Father Coughlin: Priest and Politician”:

Does Father Coughlin aspire to become “the American Hitler”? Nobody but Father Coughlin himself can say. Certainly the man is ambitious. He admits that. He is likewise ruthless. “If I threw away and renounced my faith, I would surround myself with the most adroit highjackers, learn every trick of the highest bank and stock manipulations, avail myself of the laws under which to hide my own crimes, create a smoke-screen to throw into the eyes of men, and—believe me—I would become the world’s champion crook,” he once wrote. The Constitution of the United States bars him from ever becoming president: he was not born in the United States, and there is doubt about his citizenship. Lack of citizenship didn’t prevent Adolf Hitler from becoming ruler of Germany, however. Adolf simply tore up the German Constitution, and wrote another more to his liking.”

The same article revealed that while Coughlin was denouncing Wall Street as the “international banker” he was himself a speculator in the stock market; and while calling for the “restoration of silver” as a “Christian concern” he held through his secretary more silver than anyone else in Michigan, a half million ounces.

Russian Bear Fable

Other themes may vary, but Coughlin’s constant cry is against Communism. In this he follows the orders of Rome: If the Hierarchy were really sincere in their desire to stamp out Communism, why shouldn’t they cease bothering with the little sputterings in America and elsewhere direct their attack on Russia? It appears reasonable that the place to fight this “menace” would be at its acknowledged source. With the Rome-Berlin axis solidly behind the pope, Japan squeezing from Russia’s Mongolian frontier, France and England apathetic, no trouble could have been caused Papal armies in taking over the U.S.S.R. Hitler, next door, never bothers about the “menace” of the Soviet. He is too busy shouting about the abuse of Germans in some country he intends to steal for the Hierarchy. As stated before; the pontiff addressed words of comfort to the Communists in 1938; while Molotoff, premier-foreign minister of Russia, rejected an Anglo-French alliance publicly, May 31, 1939, and, later, signed a non-aggression pact with Germany. Russia is plainly lined up with the other totalitarians. Nor can Rome afford to destroy Russia as long as the Communist “boogerman” story is to be used. All enemies that are to be destroyed must be made to appear to be “Reds” nurtured by the menace of “Red Russia”. How can they do this if there “ain’t no” Red Russia? They are about as much afraid of the big bad bear as a fish is of drowning. But the fable is not a bedtime story. It covers up some of the bloodiest treachery since the Huguenot Massacre by the Catholic De Medici.

The Conflagration Ahead

The cries of “Heil Hitler” and “Viva Franco” by the hoodlums of Coughlin who attempted to break up a lawful assembly at Madison Square Garden betoken ill for America.

Franco has already enough friends in official circles to obtain a $15,000,000 loan from the United States Treasury for Fascist Spain, according to The Nation, issue of July 22, 1939. Perhaps the Franco-Coughlin group, or “Christian Front”, has not yet reached revolutionary strength, but THE DAY is set, and judging from the exploits of their hero, Franco, it will be a bloody day. They are urged to acts of savagery by an artful haranguer who knows how to tap the beastly venom of prejudice and malice which has spread enormously in these wicked years. Behind the fire-builder is the powerful and merciless Rome. Her smoke-screen obscures the blaze until it finally breaks through cover, a devouring conflagration, and the terror is upon the land. The kindling is always the same. In Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, and now America, the same cry is raised: “DOWN WITH COMMUNISM!”

Van Paassen writes under the chapter heading “The Infamy”*:

“Hitler’s declaration of war on Communism is a masterpiece of Machiavellian diplomacy. In raising the hue and cry against Moscow the Fuehrer has frightened the bourgeoisie of every country of which he desires the disintegration into looking toward himself as the champion of the established order and as the savior of Europe.”

The same writer gives an amazing Catholic authority to show that the “Frente Popular, the ‘Popular Front’ which first Franco and now Coughlin denounce as Communist, was really the voice of a free Catholic people**.

Exterminating Bolshevism!

“If the Frente Popular is victorious,” said Señor de Sempun Gurrea, perhaps the most authoritative of the Spanish Catholic intellectuals, “the Church will have absolute freedom. A great freedom, a terrible freedom! May it please God that she is not tempted to abuse that freedom! From the reawakening and the liberation of the people, the Church has nothing to fear. On the contrary, she will be freed herself, delivered from the chains that bind her to big business. She will find back her virtue, which is to love and serve and not to command.”

Thus writes a Catholic Loyalist, a member of the Popular Front which Franco has now almost completely exterminated. He is now, no doubt, either dead by Franco’s firing squad or a very disillusioned man; for the “Church” preferred the chains of her illicit lover, Big Business, even at the cost of thousands of lives of the best Catholics of the Republic. “Sixty-nine thousand of the most ardent Catholics in the world were slain in the one month of April, 1937, in Euzkadi. But Hitler got the mines.”* Many more died by Franco’s execution squad, often kissing the crucifix before being led to death. One of the Nationalist divisions was called the Loyola division in honor of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, and now in the obscurity which comes from Fascist censorship Coughlin and Franco tell the world the fight was Christianity against Communism. It was not to make Catholics that the “Church” backed Franco. It was the greed of dispossessed capitalists avariciously and wickedly directing a bloody assault to obtain by wholesale murder and larceny their lost riches.

It was not for converts, but for gold, that Rome employed a common murderer to destroy the finest Catholic blood of the realm. And it had been done before. Van Paassen, the Dutchman, recalls other days:

What Franco was doing in Spain, the Duke of Alva and the Cardinal de Granvelle had tried to do in the seventeenth century in Holland and Flanders, and Catherine de Medici [niece of the pope] and the Duc de Guise in the savage night of St. Bartholomew’s in France: Franco and his cohorts desired to slip the collar of servitude back on the necks of the Spanish people who had just thrown it off.”

I do not hesitate to say, as do those Catholics de Sempun Gurrea, Maritain, Mounier, Bernanos and Bergamin, that the cause of the long-suffering and patient Spanish people, so inhumanly exploited for ages by their worldly and spiritual overlords [the Roman Catholic Hierarchy] and so hideously reviled in their fight for freedom, did and does represent today the cause of Christ.

Let honest people of every creed note that this is Franco’s accomplishment: Liberty ground under the bloody heel of Tyranny. This is Franco’s way, the way Coughlin craves to copy.

* Days of Our Years, page 478.

** Same, page 461.

* Days of Our Years, page 460.

** Same, pages 466, 467.

Responsibility

Two of the writers quoted herein were newspaper correspondents sending their copy from the scene of the events. Mr. Gedye represented the London Times, the New York Times, and the English Daily Express; Mr. Van Paassen

(Continued on page 18) British Comment

By J. Hemery (London)

Sir Oswald Mosley

• Mosley is a would-be savior of Britain. He has a remedy for the evils of its social system, and, if he got power, would set up a government which would enforce his ideas on the people. He admits he is revolutionary in his proposals, which may be said to be a blend of Nazism and Mussolini’s Fascism, with some ideas of his own. When he made his first bid to form a party he made free use of the term Fascist in describing it and his proposals. He copied Mussolini in wearing a black shirt, and those who became his followers did the same. A uniform was worn, and army drill and parades were part of his propaganda. The Government decided that this thing was likely to become a danger to peace and order, and it got an Act passed which made such wearing of uniforms illegal. Men appear to like being dressed up in uniform and parading, and when they could no longer parade Mosley lost his party. Persistent, he carried on propaganda, and now after some years he has made another bid for a leader’s position. He has dropped the term Fascist as describing his proposals, and now styles his movement British Union. He made a new bid for notice by means of a big meeting held in London’s newest and largest auditorium. Before the meeting took place it was announced that Mosley would address the world’s biggest meeting. It was held, and carried through after Hitler’s manner, with banners and parades, and he, the speaker, framed on a forty-foot-high platform and alone. He got a salute la Hitler, and was acclaimed the Leader by many in the audience. It is said that about 20,000 were present, of whom perhaps 10,000 were associated with his propaganda. His too previous declaration of addressing the world’s biggest audience was not realized, for Judge Rutherford a few weeks before had an audience of at least 22,000 listening to him in Madison Square Garden auditorium, New York city. Mosley’s brand of Fascism is not the same as that favored by many in the high places of politics and power in Britain. As he admits, it is too revolutionary for them, and for that reason it may well be considered that there is little probability that he will become leader of a large following, much less of his becoming Britain’s accepted dictator. In an interview with the editor of one of the Roman Catholic newspapers he said that his party had in it more Roman Catholics than of other religions. He would make friends with the Catholics as he would with Hitler and Mussolini. But he hates the Jews and apparently everything Jewish, believing, he says, that the Jew by his intrigues and his money is the cause of much of the world’s present troubles.

Growth of Fascism

• How much Mosley may ultimately accomplish in his purpose cannot, of course, be told; but it may be taken as certain that his propaganda will do something to further the idea of Fascism, though dictatorial rule towards which Britain is tending will come from other sources. Differences of opinion in the many political parties in democratic countries are playing into the hands of the Fascists. An illustration is seen at the present time in Holland, where the queen has had difficulty in getting a cabinet formed for the government of the country. It is said that the heavy cost of Holland’s rearmament program is the cause of the difficulty; for Holland, like all other European countries, is compelled to a heavy expenditure for its defense, and, as is common to all, this makes advanced social and domestic legislation impossible. It is said that in Holland there are 400,000 persons unemployed, or more than 25 percent of its workers. Roman Catholicism is strong in Holland, and busies itself in the Cabinet and Parliament in the interests of that system. Always the interests of “the church” are the main consideration to a Roman Catholic. Because of its troubles it is said that the queen may dispense with Parliament and rule the country through orders in Council, and that would be the application of Fascism. In the confused conditions which obtain in Britain there are many who are already ready to accept such rule, and certainly now that war has come that form of government would seem inevitable, under the style of a national council.

Bureaucratic Rule in Britain

• A government which cannot be absolved from the suspicion of Fascist leanings and sympathies has during the past few years set up several ministries for the better regulation of the agricultural industries. Thus there is a Pig Board, which controls the producing, the importing and the marketing of pigs and bacon. There is a Potato Board, with full executive powers to say how many acres shall be allocated to potato growing. A farmer must have a license to grow potatoes, and must pay for it at the rate of £5 per acre, and may not increase his acreage except by license. The Board taxes the merchants who may deal with the crops; it regulates the size and weight of the potatoes which may be offered for human consumption. Then there is a Milk Board, to regulate the production and sale of milk, and which fixes the prices throughout the land. Many of these regulations are considered irksome, and to an observer some seem strange and even ridiculous; certainly those under them consider and find some rules very irksome. For example, a farmer producer must sell his milk to a registered retailer, or to a certain wholesale concern. He may not sell even a pint of his milk to a neighbor, not even if the neighbor has a sick child, and the need is urgent; he may not sell a glass of milk to a passing stranger for his refreshment. Infringement of regulations may cost him dearly in fines, or even worse. Correspondingly the retailer may not give a glass of milk to a passing beggar. The various boards have many inspectors always alert for transgressions of its regulations. The Milk Board fixes the prices of the trade, whether wholesale or retail. Much milk is sold to firms in the chocolate manufactures, and for such milk the farmer will get about 6d per gallon; if he also has a retail purchaser the consumer must pay at the rate of 2/- or 2/4 per gallon. A member of Parliament, voicing some of the criticisms of the Board’s regulations, gave his own experiences as a small producer in Devon. He owns a small farm, he said, and told Parliament, “Last month I received 7.3 pence a gallon for my milk. In London they sell it to the consumer at 28 pence a gallon. Who gets the difference?” The cost of distribution in the large cities is necessarily heavy; but the margin is a wide one. The member went on to remark that which any observer may notice and confirm, namely, that there is in London a very considerable difference in the amount of cream between the London delivered milk and that which may be found in any milk of ordinary good quality. The law demands that milk retailed shall contain not less than 3 percent of butter fat; but cows of ordinary good feeding give more than that. The great combines pasteurize the milk, and it seems they take care to pass on to the consumer just such amount of butter fat as will keep them within the law. As they do not break the law, who has a right to complain?

No doubt there are advantages to be seen in this bureaucratic form of government. Undoubtedly the agricultural interests have been very badly neglected, and there is now some co-ordination between the production of the land and its distribution. There has been much criticism of the manner of accomplishing what all agreed needed doing, and many members of Parliament roundly declared that chiefs were posted to high positions though they lacked the essential qualifications of actual experience in the matters they were to regulate and control. It is plain that there has been much multiplication of offices and of officials. The various ministers have almost absolute powers as executives: Parliament delegated these offices to the Government’s control, and what is done cannot be debated by Parliament. All this means that by one means or other, apparently by policy or by complexity of legislation, Fascism—of which these boards have a form—is ever coming nearer. Nazism, the reducing of all things under one head, is not welcome to those who have money and power, but Fascism is seductive to many.

Jews in Britain

◆ In Britain Jews have for a long time enjoyed equal rights with its nationals, but that a measure of anti-Semitism is present is apparent, and Mosley’s followers will increase it. No doubt feeling has arisen by reason of the fact that though the Jew takes fullest advantage of the liberties he enjoys he nevertheless considers first himself and his kind, and the general interests last. A noted Jew, aged Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, as he is sometimes styled, has found refuge in England, driven out of Austria because he is a Jew. Telling of his gratitude for what kindly English friends have done for him, he says, “I have found the kindliest welcome in beautiful, free, generous England. Here I live as a welcome guest and happy that I can speak and write, and think as I want to, or have to.” Freud takes immediate advantage of his freedom by publishing a book in which he seeks dom by publishing a book in which he seeks to destroy the truthfulness of the Scriptures. He has no use for the Scriptures as the revelation of God and His will. In fact, he is an atheist, whether or not he would so declare himself. His present endeavor is to give expression to his unbelief in the Scriptures’ record of Jehovah’s dealings with Moses and Israel, and of the declaration of His will to Moses. His book has received a good deal of attention; for all the intelligentsia must take note of what such a noted man says. The persons through their newspapers do not acclaim him as a champion of their own unbelief in the Hebrew Scriptures, but have little to say, for the simple reason many of them agree with this aged unbeliever, but dare not speak just so plainly as he feels himself at liberty to do. Freud says he may now, in England, speak “as I have to”. Undoubtedly he has to, in that he is under the influence of demons. His psychoanalysis practice is one of the Devil’s attempts to turn man to himself for salvation from his troubles—a dogma and practice readily accepted by a generation that does not want the rule of the Creator.

…