THE EDITOR SAYS
Evjue, William T.
The Editor Says By WILLI <\M 1. KVJLIE AROUND TABLE discussion on the war at a luncheon given at • the University club by Dean Lloyd K. Garrison for his cousin. Oswald Garrison Villard, one time...
...Cough-lin's rapid descent as a pulling power over the air...
...Villard's well known loyalty to the principle of pacifism...
...For decades Mr...
...Villard was reminded too that the technique of Invasion is changing,—that Hitler could infiltrate this country with thousands of spies and saboteurs and that the fifth column today serves the purposes of invaders as well as guns and bombers...
...No one knows, said Mr...
...Cong...
...The stations that did join the independent chain set up for Fr...
...This writer has always assumed that the people of Germany are now solidly back of Hitler...
...Prof...
...Whenever representatives of radio stations gather-in conventions or business meetings, one of the topics that is sure to come up is Fr...
...Upon his return from Europe, Pres...
...His observation about the army was particularly interesting but the day's visitor said that outwardly the army caste is for Hitler but inwardly they hate him...
...Every last British ship will be sunk by the British just as the German warships were sunk by the Germans in the 1 ast World war...
...He said that he had talked to men and women in all classes ranging from chauffeurs and waiters to bankers and industrialists...
...Villard, "that we will lose the most precious thing in our possession,—democracy and liberty...
...Villard contended that before we spend millions of dollars on battleships which may become obsolete, that we should at least wait to ascertain w^hich is the dominant weapon in this war,—the air bomber or the battleship...
...Mr...
...Then Mr...
...C. K. Leith, Prof...
...Prof...
...Villard posed a position from which he refused to budge,—that Hitler would never be able to invade Canada or Mexico even if he succeeded in smashing France and England...
...But Mr...
...A year ago Father Coughlin was a big headache for the radio interests...
...Villard was quite uncomfortable In trying to sustain his view that we should not go to war even if Canada or Mexico were invaded...
...Villard, Dean Garrison, Prof...
...how many planes and bombers are now at the service of Hitler...
...McEvoy refers to Fr...
...Vil-lark speaks German very well and in many parts of Germany it was assumed that he was a native German and he was astounded to find that people spoke freely to him of their views...
...Villard stated that everywhere on his swing over the country, he found overwhelming sentiment in favor of the United States staying out of the European mess...
...Villard to the White house in order to get Mr...
...Coughlin were subjected to bitter bombardments from both sides of the Coughlin controversy...
...Coughlin's speculations In silver also served to injure his popularity, But It was when Coughlin started his Jew-baiting that his real decline started, because it was here that the Catholic hierarchy finally put the hobbles on the radio priest...
...Vil-lard's estimate of what was transpiring on the troubled continent...
...In his entire stay in Germany, said Mr...
...Roosevelt and the allied who are held up as seeking to embroil the United States in a war...
...E. E. Witte...
...The concluding paragraph of Mr McEvoy'b article follows: "Perhaps it is this Inner conflict between his drive for personal power and the restraint of his priestly office—this and the premonition of ultimate defeat— which accounts for his violence, for here is worldly ambition throttled in a clerical collar, trapped in a parish chfich, h bitter prboner in the shrine of the Little Flower...
...Germany today has embarked on a program where she is utterly indifferent to the good will of the rest of the world,—she seeks only to have the rest of the world fear her...
...Mr...
...Coughlin as a frustrated Richelieu whose prestige was badly dented when he called Pres...
...Villard stated that Winthrop Rockefeller was on the boat on which Mr...
...William Lemke, didn't poll 9,000,000 votes...
...As one of those at the table said: "It will at least be better to lose our democracy and our liberty at our own hands than at the hands of Hitler...
...Villard's statement that he would not favor going into war even if Canada were invaded brought a lively counter charge from all around the table...
...In his article Mr...
...J. D. Hicks of the history department, Winter Everett, and this writer...
...INTEREST in the European war has served to obscure the fact that Father Coughlin and his prestige have been slipping fast in recent months and that he is no longer considered a political threat of national proportions...
...Lemke polled less than one-tenth of that number and Coughlin, discouraged and discredited, did quit the air "In the best interests of the people" as he put It...
...Coughlin is following much of their line in attacking Pres...
...T believe that the minute the United States enters the war," said Mr...
...The visitor said that the Italian people hate the Germans bitterly but at the same time they fear the Nazis...
...They all believed that the Nazi crowd was steering Germany toward destruction and they were particularly perturbed over the scorn with which the rest of the world now holds Germany...
...If the /tcrmans In the vicinity of Narvlk/.sucoeed In blowing up the railroad/nd the tunnels leading from Narm to Klriina...
...Villard, he talked to hundreds of people and of this number only two said that they were for the Nazi program...
...McEvoy said: "Where is he...
...As one Catholic dignitary put if: 'He may be a thorn in the side of the Jews, but he is just as much a thorn In the side of the Catholics.' If he should leave the church, he would lose the largest part of his following and tho mast influential element of his i.ppeal...
...Oswald Garrison Villard, one time editor of the paper that was founded by Alexander Hamilton, the New York Post, and later editor of the Nation for many years...
...McEvoy says that Coughlin was Intensely ambitious and now he finds himself a disappointed leader Willi a constantly lessening following...
...Leith added that it must not be forgotten tMt England, too, has been dependent upon the Kiruna mines for at leastJ40 per cent of Its-iron ore...
...Today there is not a peep from the Communists because Fr...
...England will htve suifi-ed a major blow because t^flsTshippillg that will be required to bring ore from other parts of the world...
...But litter he deckled to come back but never to attain his former prestige...
...You can rest assured that after we get in a war, democracy and liberty will be suppressed because everywhere it is being recognized that wars, to be fought successfully, must be fought along totalitarian lines...
...To the question if he .did not believe that Hitler would be a menace to the Western hemisphere if he succeeded in getting control of the British fleet, Mr...
...Villard proceeded to base his view on an entirely different ground...
...Villard stated that the situation is very much the opposite and that a big majority of the people today are against Hitler including a large section of the army...
...Villard held to his guns and maintained that the huge appropriations that are now being rushed through congress for a big navy and national defense are nothing more than a gigantic racket,—that millions are being spent for the construction of battleships as a defe'nse against conditions arising out of this war when there isn't a shipyard in the country where a keel can be laid, and even if there were such shipyards, it would take at least five years to build a battleship...
...Roosevelt a liar and when he went into the political arena and promised to quit radio if his candidate...
...Leith, whose views on the importance of raw materials as the cause for the beginning and the ending of wars are familiar, said that in his judgment the question of iron ore was more important than oil and that the side which is able to gain control of the Swedish Iron ore mines at Kiruna will have a big advantage in determining the final result of the war...
...Rockefeller said that through the manufacture of synthetic gasoline and through imports from Rumonia and Russia that Germany can wage a war for a year on the available supply...
...Villard, speak in contemptuous language of the English fleet and maintain that this war will demonstrate that the battleship and the cruiser have become obsolete and that the country which dominates the air will win the war...
...Leith maintained that Germany cannot conduct the war for a great length of time without access to these ore deposits...
...Villard returned to America and that he had been to Europe to make a study of the situation pertaining to oil and gasoline...
...Villard replied: "Do you suppose for a moment that Hitler will ever get control of'the British fleet...
...The noted writer J. P. McEvoy has an article in Scribner's Commentator in which he discusses the gradual deflation of Coughlin...
...Villard went on to say that he would be against our entrance into any war even if the Nazis invaded Canada or Mexico...
...Villard made a statement that surprised this writer...
...These Nazi officers, said Mr...
...But Mr...
...Prof...
...This controversy has now entirely subsided and the stations whicii are now carrying his talks receive but little mail whereas they were bombarded by letters a year ago...
...The ability of Germany to carry on a war for any great length of time because of a lack of war materials was also discussed and the importance of oil and gasoline stressed...
...The three chains did not want his talks...
...Villard has been an outstanding figure in the field of liberal journalism in the United States,—a brave soul who has had the courage to champion the cause of pacifism, justice for the Negro, and other causes in behalf of inarticulate and under privileged groups in the country...
...He was i plainly told that this attempt to | arouse racial hatred was incompatible with Catholic doctrine...
...Recently the Coughlin radio talks were cut from an hour to a half hour...
...At this point, Prof...
...Villard estimated that it is a part of the German propaganda technique to make claims of the might of Germany in order to terrorize other peoples and particularly to instill fear into the neutrals...
...Villard, appalling in its import, was that high army officers with whom he talked in Germany-were supremely confident that the Nazis will have the British empire begging for peace by July 15...
...But I had a feeling that Mr...
...Those around the table gasped inwardly at this statement and naturally concluded that this view stemmed out of Mr...
...The outstanding statement made by Mr...
...A troublesome shepherd of a troublesome flock, he has cut off all chance for advancement in the church...
...Villard returned in December from a four months' tour of Europe in which he spent considerable time in Germany...
...He stated that in Germany he had heard the number placed as high as 30.000 and everywhere there was the feeling that Germany's air armada would be able to reduce English coastal cities to shambles...
...The revelations concerning Fr...
...Re-pudlated and discredited at the polls, he can look to no future as a political leader...
...Roosevelt invited Mr...
...Those gathered around the luncheon table were Mr...
...A year ago the Communists were attacking radio stations that carried the Coughlin talks...
Vol. 10 • May 1940 • No. 18
