Father Coughlin vs. the Federal Reserve System

Report Outline
Coughlin Campaign for Banking-Monetary Changes
Ownership and Control of Federal Reserve System
Power to Coin and Regulate the Value of Money
Profits of Federal Reserve Banks and Member Banks
Methods of Government Financing
Special Focus

Coughlin Campaign for Banking-Monetary Changes

Basic Charges Against the Federal Reserve Banks

The Federal Reserve banking system has been subjected for more than a year to a running fire of criticism and abuse by the Reverend Charles E. Coughlin, pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower at Royal Oak, Mich., organizer and president of the National Union for Social Justice, and leading supporter of the third-party presidential candidacy of Representative William Lemke. Father Coughlin's attacks upon Federal Reserve banks and bankers, broadcast to the country by radio and widely reproduced in the press, are said to have won for his theories on money and banking a body of public support second only to that commanded by the policies in this field of the President of the United States.

The principal charges made by Father Coughlin in his radio addresses and political speeches have been the following:

1. The Federal Reserve banks, privately-owned, have “contrary to our sovereign rights and our Constitution,” usurped the power of Congress to coin and regulate the value of money. By doing so they have achieved, to a great extent, control over American industry.