Coughlinites Gaining Hold of 'America First'
ROGERS, VINCENT
Coughlinites Gaining Hold of 'America First' Chicago Office Works With Dilling, Nye Aids Fascists By VINCENT ROGERS Only John T. Flynn's Manhattan section of America First keeps that nations!,...
...Edwin W. Colmani of the wealthy Milwaukee Colmans...
...This Save-the-Union Committee held a caucus each week before the regular meeting of the membership...
...Second, from the point of view of strict naval and military necessity, we shall Rive every possible assistance to Britain and to all who, with Britain, are resisting- Hitlerism or its equivalent with force of arms...
...Here" is our national policy as enunciated by the President: "First, we shall actively resist wherever necessary, and with all our resources every attempt by Hitler to extend his Nazi domination to the Western Hemisphere or to threaten it...
...This lawless activity prevented the truth about the acts of members under charges from coming before the members...
...We insist upon the vital importance of keeping: Hitlerism away from any point in the world which could be used or would be used as a base of attack against the Americas...
...By shifting its activities into the America First set-up it is rehabilitating its prestige...
...Just as secretly, and-just as firmly, Quito refuses to accept the finding...
...Many corporation executives are exploiting the public's sentiment that Communists are Prolonging some strikes...
...He warned the Latin-American nations that they will share the fate of the Balkans if Hitler wins, and that the whole economy of the Western Hemisphere will be reduced to a slave economy able to live and function only-by the grace of Hitler...
...The advisory committee contains Max Babb, president of the powerful Allis-Chalmers corporation...
...The situation in other cities is similar...
...to be guided in the tempest now raging -throughout the world...
...At any rate, the matter •.one*which Sidney Hillman is handling capably...
...William Ryan, Christian Front leader, and others associated with the pro-fascist, anti-union Gerald K. Smith, andJr°|"ly^^^j^jjffi1 speaker...
...Washington won this clash by supporting the ultra-conservative (but highly unpopular) President Carlos Arroyo del Rio...
...We will ndt accept a Hitler dominated world," was the challenge he hurled at the Nazis and their allies...
...He jjErted that full .details would soon become **wn of how the United States, supported by '•?two South American powers, had averted * eatastrophe...
...At a meeting held in Civic Auditorium on May 18th the suspension of the lodge was lifted and a plan was introduced to reorganize the lodge in sueh a way as to make it possible for the membership to control the organization...
...Our patrols are helping now to insure delivery of the needed supplies to Britain...
...There is no other direction we can travel except the- road upon which- we have embarked...
...Last Wednesday evening, in...
...All additional measures necessary to deliver the goods will be taken...
...Harry Bridges at the convention of his union proclaimed that this attempt to infiltrate at the Boeing- Works would have his support...
...All witnesses, defendants and plaintiffs testified under oath...
...affiHa±es.v.Fpr.thp_, ¦^aast^t^^etfrs'lffany "of* us nave beenXof the opinion that the Communists were boring from within-3il Seattle...
...By the next meeting of the lodge, however, the Communist faction had organized its forces so successfully, that those present ignored the action of the membership and invited Keppler to return and participate in the activities of the organization...
...This much is known...
...It should be made clear in this connection that the membership is so large that it is impossible for more than a fraction of it to meet in even the largest hall in Seattle...
...with the Coughlinite apparatus, and with prominent fascist spokesman...
...Not least of his problems is what the President will do in legitimate strike situations krooght on by employer intransigeance...
...A diplomatic struggle then developed in Quito between Washington and Berlin...
...What is the President going to do about those leaders of CIO who are determined to use their tsjon control to stop convoys, and who are willing to fight resolutions condemning totalitarian ifents in the labor movement...
...This great aircraft manufacturing concern,' playing a prime part in the American defense program, offers exceptional opportunities for such an, attempt...
...After full discussion and warnings from officers that the union should try to avoid such difficulties as those into which it had recently fallen, the members present voted without a dissenting voice in favor of the reorganization program...
...A strike there-would make 11,300 idle...
...Literature and tickets for the Lind-bergh-Wneeler-Thomas Garden rally were on every seat...
...The President coupled this statement of policy with an appeal to all sections and classes of American people to unite in a great common effort for the defense of the United States and the entire Western Hemisphere, and announced his assumption under the Constitution and the laws of the land of virtually wartime powers to enable him to carry out speedily and effectively the tasks and duties devolving upon him in the emergency.' No American who heard or read the President's speech can doubt any longer what this war involves for us and for mankind...
...it will be done...
...Its heads are William Goodwin, Coughlinite candidate for Congress in 1936...
...Perhaps the new tiree-fflen board, consisting of John iSteelman, httd of the United States Conciliation Service, (VA...
...The delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative...
...Trials were carried on with every formality to protect the rights of the accused members...
...Galo .Plaza, with leftist leanings, blocked the effort—of the United States to obtain & base on the Galapagos Islands...
...One veteran investigator of fascist activities in this country told this reporter that "all John FlynriV efforts to delouse America First politically are futile...
...The rapid additions to the working force have afforded the Communists and their fellow-travelers abundant opportunities to colonize the plant...
...It arranged "must" programs, got its machinery set, and appeared at .membership meetings prepared to put its programs across...
...Though the Machinists have long had a rule against admitting Communists, many members of the party were'sent out to apply for jobs, and as fast as they were hired they automatically became members, of the local...
...Elliott Ogden, realtor...
...The President made clear our determination to help make the disaster of the Axis powers a reality...
...TheF President has- shown the way He has reasserted^* leadership...
...From the capital to the coast the America First chapters are becoming more closely identified with anti-Semitism of the type which is expressed by "international bankers" propaganda...
...We will not hesitate to use our armed forces to repel attack...
...During a period of three months the Communists used their familiar tactics in the lodge...
...Within a few years it has grown to a personnel of 10,000 and by the close of this year will.'have sixteen to eighteen thousand men making the famous Boeing Bombers...
...It is a land rich with the Jr^Jo replace the East Indies supplies now S**7 Japan...
...The Brooklyn-Queens fascist crowd, led by Father Edward Lodge Curran, is out for Flynn's scalp...
...During my presence at a meeting held on March 27th, the members iii attendance voted, under Communist influence and without stated reasons, to pay no bills and1 to withhold the regular per capita tax from the grand lodge...
...Secretly, Peru stands on this award and would undoubtedly resort to arms to make it stick...
...By a two-thirds majority the membership expelled him...
...At the same time, taking up the challenge of Grand Admiral Raeder warning this country against convoys and naval assistance to England in the task of bringing American supplies and war material to British ports...
...We must not be defeated by the fear of the very danger which we are preparing to resist...
...Arroyo was opposed by the General Staff, supreme in power, who were prepared to establish'the War Minister, Galo Plaza, as president...
...It is a thirty-seven-year-old document in the Government archives at Madrid...
...They have corralled'into a CIO local' former members of I. A. of M. who have been expelled: On behalf-of • this group, who'because if the closed-shop agreement with the I. A. of M. are not now employed by Boeing, the Automobile Workers now petition the Boeing Corporation to be recognized as authorized bargaining agents...
...The two labor organizations now top 10,000,000 combined, according to their 0»a records...
...The rest are Italian-Americans, and surprisingly enough, Negroes...
...Its personnel was drawn from the same crowd which makes up Coughlin's supporters...
...Editorial America Will Not Permit A Hitler Victory — Roosevelt President^ Roosevelt's address to the American people last Tuesday eveninj clarified in unmistakable manner this nation's attitude and policy in the titani< struggle between totalitarianism and democracy...
...Flynli effort to prevent blocs of tickets from falling into the hands of men like Christian Mobilizer leader Joe McWilliams was frustrated by members of his own committee...
...There are close to a million JaPin auto, aircraft and allied industries, fluw in big and little steel, closed shops and ¦B energetic organizing campaign and CIO may gtke g°od John Lewis' boast that he would la*e 10,000,000 in CIO within the decade...
...Robert Harris, Father .Coughlin's broker...
...Following these expulsions Don Keppler and Hugo Lundquist organized a Save-the-Union Committee...
...of Vultee, Allis-Chalmers, International Harvester and the other large strikes which rang up a loss of 2,023,316 man diys of work on War Department orders since ternary, 194L ¦There are several potential strike situations current...
...Louis Quarles, important corporation attorney...
...I tried to get the floor in order to explain that a portion of the dues known as per capita tax was the property of the grand lodge and so could not be withheld...
...Coughlinites Gaining Hold of 'America First' Chicago Office Works With Dilling, Nye Aids Fascists By VINCENT ROGERS Only John T. Flynn's Manhattan section of America First keeps that nations!, committee from being completely controlled by Roosevelt-hating socially and industrially prominent big business leaders, and by what reporters frequently refer to as the "crackpot fascist fringe of peanut fuehrers...
...Later a resolution condemning Communists and Nazis was passed after a hard fight...
...This activity of the CIO in trying to wean away our -nembers is evidence of their resentment at the :reatment which we bad aceorded to the Com-nunists...
...Brown, "and again rn 1928 we passed a resolution prohibiting members of our organization from belonging to the Communist Party or anyof its...
...openly boast of being on the CIO payroll...
...Washington then enabled Arroyo to buy off the General Staff with loans to the Arroyo Government...
...It Jua been learned that Roosevelt is determined to ivoid repetition...
...Dilling is the author of the notorious "Red Network...
...This situation gives the dissident faction opportunity to pack the meetings...
...Their agreement ^ the best in the entire industry...
...Once de Ford contract is signed, nearly 100,000 will he taken on in one plant alone...
...Meanwhile AFL reports an increased mem-fcirship of 750,000...
...Norman Thomas' appearance at last week's isolationist rally did little to change the type of crowd...
...It could, according to those who have an inkling of what it contains, cause war between Peru and Ecuador...
...The President minced no words in demonstrating that the destruction of the independence and1 liberties of this nation is an integral part of Hitler's program of world domination...
...President Roosevelt proclaimed our determination to maintain the freedom of the seas and issued the counter challenge that shooting by the Germans would meet with relentless resistance...
...The defeat of the Axis powers, the President said, is essential to our own security and the establishment of a new, enduring world equilibrium...
...These are days of mass organization of mass production industries...
...Tributaries...
...The situation in Brooklyn arid Queens is of more than local interest...
...The sinking of the Bismarck by the British Navy has demonstrated again its might in open combat...
...Peru's main port for Ama-™ Jqultos, « claimed by Ecuador, and the Peruvian press charges that Ecuador has been moving troops of an army now rapidly expanding under a now national conscription law...
...The action of the Automobile Workers Union in this Seattle case, when the International Association of Machinists found it necessary to discipline a group of members for creating an intolerable situation, is evidence that the CIO has broken faith with this Advisory Committee of which its members constitute a part...
...liaf want to know just what the President it pjfctp do about American Peace Mobiliza-tj^ppting of plants which do not employ Hpfc-'The vital Glenn Martin aircraft fac-^ggiRaltimore.has been an APM target for ypt to get 7,000 of them replaced by Negroes...
...As a result of these trials eleven members were expelled...
...Richard Frankenstein and Wyndham Mortimer were- promptly dispatched to Seattle to serve as generals in charge...
...The Ford victory for CIO opened ^jjj of vast organization drives on an un-M(eedented scale...
...Answer to this is awaited eagerly hi labor's friends and its congressional enemies tH» lee in the emergency proclamation the T^Aele for legislative cracking down on union orpmaticn...
...Their dreams of world domination will then go by the board...
...A court reporter- kept a complete record of the proceedings, and the transcripts were reviewed by the Executive Council...
...There i» no turning back...
...This is not just a sentimental dispute over J»8tested frontier, for vast wealth is at stake...
...The leaders-among the expelled Communists now...
...Amaion give cheap water transportation r*°?«fc the great Brazilian artery and an At-, j""** Port...
...As President Roosevelt declared: "The Axis powers can-never achieve their objective of world domination unless they first obtain control of the-4eas...
...The newspaper, the organ of the Indian Congress Party which is headed by Nehru, endorses Herbert Morrison's, British Minister of Home Affairs and Home Security, reference to Hess, on May 17, last, as a "brutal thug, rat number one, a Trojan Horse, or Giant Panda trying to find inocents to play with...
...that we must preserve peace at any price—lest we lose our liberties forever, the President declared: "Never in the history of the world has a nation lost its democracy by a successful struggle to defend its democracy...
...During the past week «9ployer sitdowns have resulted in 19 AFL rtrikes involving more than 17,750 employees •Od 27 CIO strikes making idle more than M.950 strikers...
...Dykstra, chairman of the National De-feBM Mediation Board, and Maxwell Brandwen if the Office of Production Management, can a)0td up settlement of honest industrial dis-)Oes...
...This does not represent Michigan sentiment...
...In this grim game the Axis powers hold a trump card...
...One exists at Ford, another at the Iiglewood, Calif., plant of the North American Aviation Company, which has come $200,000,000 in aircraft orders...
...Since 1936 and 1937 the Boeing workers have been organized by the I.A.M...
...it must be done...
...There must be no turning back...
...Whatever the grievances may be, tie fset remains that such a walkout would be ir the hands of Lou Michener, recognized on tie west coast as a party liner...
...It has 20,000 members, most of whom are of the pro-Nazi German-American type...
...In those two New York City boroughs are centered the remnants of the Eastern strength of the-Coughlinite apparatus...
...He made clear the fact that Britain must survive if this nation is net to be encircled and enslaved, and he rejected the folly of a negotiated peace with Hitler...
...Charges were preferred against 52 additional persons for giving aid and comfort to dual unionism and advocating secession...
...She boasts of the fact that some of her collection boxes arc located in the Chicago America First headquarters...
...Finally this Save-the-Union' Committee rfc solved itself into a committee to swing Lodge 751 over to the CIO...
...Nehru Paper Hits Hess, Calls for Fight on Nazis LUCKNOW, India.—The transfer of Rudolph Hess from a hospital room to a cell in the Tower of London is advocated in Jawarharlal Nehru's newspaper, the National Herald, Vub-lished here, in a scathing editorial condemning the Nazi form of government...
...Pointing out that "the war is approaching the brink of the Western Hemisphere itself" and "is coming very close to home," the President warned Hitler that we will act the instant he tries to seize the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands or Dakar—springboards for an attack against this hemisphere and bridgeheads vital to control of the Atlantic...
...of the up-W...
...As a result of this unconstitutional act I expelled John Bader, the President of the lodge...
...We shall actively resist his every attempt to gain control of the seas...
...and the criminal leaders who started this war will suffer inevitable disaster...
...And war between those two American nations is what the Axis will certainly promote at the proper moment: Historically and culturally, Spain has the influence to make an award to Peru stick throughout most of Latin-America...
...is doing neither the Negroes nor the plant's |WuWioh-.in#' good...
...Our freedom has shown its ability to survive wa*\ but our freedom would never survive surrender...
...Several months ago the Labor Advisory Committee to the Labor Member of the National Defense Commission (consisting of four representatives each from A. F. of L., Railway Brotherhoods and CIO) adopted a resojutjpn providing that whenever a labor organiaroon, whether A. F. of L. or CIO, found it necessary to discipline a group of members in a union of the situation in order to worm its way into shop the other group would not take advantage the plant or plants affected...
...Complaints with regard to this breach of faith have been registered with the Committee...
...We do not accept and will not permit this Nazi 'shape of things to come'," the President declared in what was to all intents and purposes an ultimatum to the Axis powers...
...Even as the President proclaimed his emergency, word came of CIO support of Communist Wrkers in the federal government...
...There is a closed-shop' agreement...
...In this territory great untapped g?" °* oil have been discovered,-drilled, and _ Srjy capped...
...That is their supreme purpose today, and to aehieve it they must capture Great Britain...
...territory in controversy, noV largely held J Peruvian border patrols, is larger than all 5.recognized Ecuador...
...How this will be affected by the President's •jnlimited" emergency is hard to foretell...
...In Milwaukee America First is led by big business...
...But if the Axis powers fail to gain control of the seas then they ate certainly defeated...
...We in the Americas will decide for ourselves whether, and when, and where our American interests are attacked or our security threatened...
...One man, Don Keppler, Viee-President of the local lodge, was found guilty by Lodge 751 (the Boeing employees' organization) of engaging in Communist activity...
...They fillibustered during meetings and prevented the trial committee from reporting on additional cases which had been investigated...
...Axis Seeks to Provoke War Between Ecuador and Peru : By BRYCE OLIVER *Bt...
...Chairman of the Wisconsin American First Committee is Lansing Hoyt, chairman as well of the Milwaukee County Republican central committee...
...In view of the national emergency and, especially, of the importance of the aircraft industry to the defense program, these charges carry very grave implications...
...Roosevelt's pronouncement...
...But they.'have noW become common, and our experience in the Boeing local was but a repetition of recent history in other places...
...Any and all further methods or combination of methods, which can or should be utilized, are being devised fcy our military and naval technicians, who, with me, will work out and put into effect such new and additional safeguards as may be needed...
...The proposal made was to divide the organization into six lodges which would act in unison through a district lodge, a sort of joint board...
...ClQ's Raid on AFL Union at Boeing MayCrippleProductionofFlyingFortresses Auto Workers . Action Follows Expulsion of CPers By WILLIAM E. BOHN WASHINGTON, D. C—The CIO Automobile Workers Union is using Communists expelled by the Aircraft local of the Machinist's Union at the great Bpeing Aircraft Works in Seattle, to promote a dual organization, it is charged by Harvey W. Brown, President of the International Association of Machinists...
...The National Mediation Service is jumbled...
...Such committees as this were unknown in the trade union movement before the Communists began their disruptive activities...
...It was mainly from Irish and German .pro-Nazi organizations...
...The effort of Axis spokesmen t< minimize the importance of the address on the alleged ground that it added nothing new to previous utterances by the President as the Chief Executive of this natior charged with the conduct of its foreign affairs cannot conceal the fact that Berlin Rome and Tokyo are only too well aware of both the meaning and implications ol Mr...
...No sooner had the trouble-makers been expelled from Lodge 751 than the CIO Automobile Workers tried to step in...
...In Chiitego, America First is cooperating with Father Coughlin's Mother's Crusade and with Elizabeth Dilling, Director of the pro-fascist Patriotic Research Bureau...
...Under these serious conditions, the Executive Council of the Grand Lodge, which up to this time had held its sessions in Washington, D. C, moved out to Seattle...
...Obviously, something, serious was taking between Lima and some other capital, By those with inside information didn't V* trouble guessing, especially after that re-B* the day before by Ceballos, ih Buenos The Peruvian-Ecuadorean border dis-jWtWbich has been smouldering for 110 years, JW suddenly flared up with an ominous glow, jJ*J**shington's interference may have had TV * ^U8t *e °PP°8ite *nm that intended...
...This proclamation of an Unlimited National Emergency implemented the declaration that the United States will not permit an Axis victory and that before very long we shall be operating on a war footing ready for any action that may be required by the situation as it effects the vital interests of this country and the position of Great Britain and her allies...
...Some weeks ago, Goodwin, one of the feit men in the East ever to be honored with a personal visit from Father Coughlin, announced the formation of a party called the American Rock...
...To "the timid ones among us wrho say...
...A list of the Milwaukee America First leaders reads like a roster of the Middle West's sixty families...
...For all these years, that document has been kept a secret for the very reason that it may now suit the Spanish Government to expose it...
...We have pledged material support to the other democracies of the world—and will fulfill that pledge...
...Charges were preferred against a* dozen members...
...For a while, the Ecuador general staff listened to the siren song of Nazi agents, who assured Ecuador of Nazi support...
...Five hundred following Communist leadership in a meeting of 1,500 created such confusion that it was impossible for me to speak...
...At least, this is the story in Peru...
...But what is the President going to do ttth anions in strategic spots which are obvi-wdr .and blatantly controlled by the Commu-mst Party...
...Alejandro Ceballos, president of Accion Afeentina, may have been over-optimistic when, *PMting last week at 8 mass meeting in Buenos Aires to combat Axis political pressure in jjteDtine, he announced, that Washington, •aenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro had interfiled between Peru and Ecuador "only just in gje" to foil an Axis, plan to stampede the two *«t Coast nations into open warfare...
...President Brown, who has just returned from a trip to Seattle, where he went to deal with the.problems presented by the Communists in the Boeing plant, talked to this correspondent without reservations last week about the entire situation...
...The paper strongly urges that there should be no peace with the Nazis "until the curse of Hitlerism is lifted from the brow of mankind...
...This can be done...
...He has given the American people the light by which they are...
...Just as the AFL has had little success weeding out men like the recently indicted George E. Browne and Willie Bioff, CIO has made little headway in needing out Communist leadership, despite early premises from Phil Murray...
...We are placing our armed forces in strategic military positions...
...tabor Anxious Qver FDR Stand On Defense Strikes By EDWARD LORIN& Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C.—Labor leaders are ^ trying to draw a balance sheet on last events...
...It over-sjidows anything which has gone before...
...This is done by setting up innocent front organizations in a style similar to that of the Communists...
...Most of them are members of Milwaukee's swank North Shore set...
...It had been demonstrated that a local of 10,000 members could not meet and do business...
...As long ago as our 1924 international convention," said Mr...
...A combination of American and British sea power, buttressed by domination of the air, now surely in the making, will ultimately strangle the Nasi war machine no matter how far it may roam over the land expanses of Europe, Africa and Asia...
...He demonstrated that "unless the advance of Hitlerism is forcibly checked now, the Western Hemisphere will be within range of the Nazi weapons of destruction...
...William H. Marshall, investment banker, and Chester O. Wan-vig, prominent manufacturer...
...This gives the Prerident an additional problem...
...Under these circumstances it was temporarily necessary to suspend the lodge...
...In fact, it has been regarded as a model for aircraft and all allied industries...
...It will never be forced upon us, if we act in this present crisis with the wisdom and the courage which have distinguished our country in all the crises of the past...
...the 'Jamaica High School Auditorium, Queens America First leaders launched the "Americans ^United...
...There is-only, one course—forward to unity, action, sacrifice and victory...
...Last week the key Michigan State Industrial Council thundered approval of a ban on con-rtys...
...Members of the Communist party have been in the working force from the start...
Vol. 24 • May 1941 • No. 22
