Today is the birthday
… of basketball coach Bobby Knight. He’s 67.
… of singer Helen Reddy. “I am woman, hear me roar” is a roaring 66.
… of author Anne Tyler (not to be confused with Ann Taylor). The Pulitzer winner (for Breathing Lessons) is 66.
Early in her career, she decided she did not want to be a public person, so she stopped giving readings and only does occasional interviews in writing. She said, “Any time I talk in public about writing, I end up not able to do any writing. It’s as if some capricious Writing Elf goes into a little sulk whenever I expose him.” Ann Tyler also said, “I want to live other lives. I’ve never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances. It’s lucky I do it on paper. Probably I would be schizophrenic — and six times divorced — if I weren’t writing.”
… of basketball hall-of-famer Dave Cowens. The tenacious Celtic is 59.
… of Nancy Cartwright. The voice of Bart Simpson is 50.
Pablo Picasso was born on this date in 1881.
Charles Edward Coughlin was born on this date in 1891.
One of the first public figures to make effective use of the airwaves, Charles E. Coughlin, was for a time one of the most influential personalities on American radio. At the height of his popularity in the early 1930s, some 30 million listeners tuned in to hear his emotional messages. Many of his speeches were rambling, disorganized, repetitious, and as time went by, they became increasingly full of bigoted rhetoric. But as a champion of the poor, a foe of big business, and a critic of federal indifference in the face of widespread economic distress, he spoke to the hopes and fears of lower-middle class Americans throughout the country. Years later, a supporter remembered the excitement of attending one of his rallies: “When he spoke it was a thrill like Hitler. And the magnetism was uncanny. It was so intoxicating, there’s no use saying what he talked about…”
. . .In 1927 Coughlin offered the first Catholic services on the radio. They were an immediate success. Part of Coughlin’s appeal can be credited to his understanding of what the American public wanted to hear, but many attributed his popularity in part to the sound of his mellifluous voice. Writer Wallace Stegner described it as a “voice of such mellow richness, such manly, heart-warming confidential intimacy, such emotional and ingratiating charm, that anyone tuning past it almost automatically returned to hear it again.” In the fall of 1930, CBS picked up Coughlin’s radio show, broadcasting it over a national network for the first time. The priest began receiving approximately 80,000 letters a week.
. . .Although anti-Semitic themes appeared in some of Coughlin’s speeches fairly early in his career, it wasn’t until the late 1930s that the priest’s rhetoric became increasingly filled with attacks on Jews. By 1938, the pages of “Social Justice” were frequently filled with accusations about Jewish control of America’s financial institutions. In the summer of that year, Coughlin published a version of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” A virulently anti-Semitic piece of propaganda that had originated in Russia at the turn of the century, the “Protocols” accused Jews of planning to seize control of the world. Jewish leaders were shocked by Coughlin’s actions.
NewMexiKen once attended a sermon by Fr. Coughlin. I remember it only that I knew who he’d been thirty years earlier and that it had political undertones. The link above has more details about Coughlin’s career. The Talking History Archive has a Coughlin broadcast. Scroll down the page about 40%.