Coughlin's show drew fans, foes

The Rev. Charles Coughlin was loved and hated, perhaps one of the most feared and admired men of his time, when his Sunday radio broadcast reached an astonishing 40 million listeners worldwide.

In the days of the Great Depression, Coughlinstirred the nation's masses. He used a simple formula to rouse his listeners: He preached against political and financial leaders who he said were the cause of people's suffering.

Known as "The Voice," he earned a reputation as a social watchdog, Nazi, saint and anti-Semite. Stations in London, Rome and Madrid carried his program. Listeners cheered, sent money and tuned in again and again. Coughlin's targets included a group he mostly referred to as "the international bankers," widely understood code words for Jews.

He denied being anti-Semitic, but he so outraged Jews and Catholics that he was silenced in the early 1940s by Cardinal Edward Mooney of Detroit.

Judith Levin Cantor, author of the book "Jews in Michigan," was a child when Coughlin's show reached worldwide popularity in the late 1930s. She vividly recalls the terror her father, Samuel Levin, who was the first Jewish professor at what is now Wayne State University, experienced during his broadcasts.

"Even someone as established as my father, there was a fear that if this (Coughlin's message) was believed, you would lose your job, lose your position, your security," she said.

Coughlin served as pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower until his retirement in 1966. He died in 1979 at age 88.