Evening star., 1935-03-05
JOHNSON SCORES
PRIEST AND LONG
Former N. R. A. Chief Says
Pair Preach Revolution,
Not Reform.
By the Associated Press.

NEW YORK, March 5.-Denounce-
ing Senator Huey p. Long and Rev.
Charles E. Coughlin as pied Pipers"
preaching revolution. Gen. Hugh s.
johnson holds out to the Nation two
choices:
/. A return to the solidarity and
enthusiasm" which backed President
Roosevelt in 1888. or
2. Dictatorship and chaos.
The former N. r. A. administrator
lashed at Long and Father Coughlin
plausible punchinello" and "politi-
cal padre" ne called them-at q din
ner in his honor last night.
whether consciously or not" he
said. these two men are raging up
and down this land. preaching not
construction but destruction, not re-
form but revolution, not peace but q
sword"
Long Flares Back.
johnson said he expected them to
hit back. and Long did it promptly.
Those wreckers from Wall Street" +"
shouted the Senator in Washington,
ruined Woodrow Wilson, Herbert
Hoover and President Roosevelt. I'll
cover Johnson's case from hell to
breakfast in speech Thursday
night"
Johnson, he said. was "just a screw
driver" in the hands Of Bernard M.
Baruch, whom he described as king
fish Of the lodge under Hoover, too. "
Turning to the Roosevelt admin
istration. the Louisianan asserted:
THE farmer today is getting only
about half what he got in 1929, under
Hoover. johnson helped do that.
Cites Unemployment.
Unemployment has risen to over
100000. No one except President
Roosevelt had as much to do with
that as Baruch and johnson.
"The national debt has gone up to
$28, 500 900 900. We can thank Baruch
and johnson for doing all they could
on that. Private debts, added to that.
amount to s252,000.000,0O0. Nobody
has had half as much to do with
that as Baruch and Johnson"
johnson called the Louisiana Sena-
tor and Michigan priest leaders of
the emotional fringe" and adding
that ANY desperate person is a can
didate to join It," warned that so O00.-
900 depression victims are ready to
strike back at disaster in any way
that is shown them"
You can laugh at Father Cough
lin." declared the general. You can
snort at Huey Long, but this country
was never under a greater menace
than from the breakup of spontane-
Gus popular cooperation that is being
engineered by this pair
Taking note of the anniversary date,
Johnson lauded President Roosevelt's s
achievements during his first two
years in Office. Now, he said, vital
support Is being undermined on the
"lunatic fringes" by the Senator and
priest on one extreme and the "Old
Guard" on the other.
ANY fool knows" said johnson,
that you can't clear the wreckage of
IL years madness in two years time
But the push is gone. The drive
Is stopped. Many Of these benefits
have faded. The plan seems to be In
the gravest danger Of Illustration.
Warning Groups Spring Up.
THE reason for this is not hard to
find. The spontaneous cooperation
of a free people has been
broken up into selfish, warning groups
by the deliberate designs Of business
and political guerillas.
If We can't restore something of
the solidarity and enthusiasm of 1893
among our whole people, and do it
quickly. We are in for trouble Of the
most serious sort-for If a chaos of
imitation and worse follows frustra-
ton Of these plans, nothing we can
hope to 90 will keep a dictator out of
Washington, and that chaos is immi-
nenuy threatened"
johnson said the Old Guard had
become ''lunatic fringe" because 1t
held "the next election is in the bag
Huey Long and Father Coughltn are
going to give it to u.s."
That, he said, is the prize example
Of playing volley ball with dynamite
bombs"
Explains silver Lie"
Returning to Father Coughlin, the
general said:
Il was for him at the beginning
heart and soul. and had been told
as a Canadian citizen he was a men,
ber of the Basilian order and vowed
to poverty. When I heard a year age
that his private corporation. the
Radio League of the Little Flower
was interested in the silver of which
he was preaching monetization,
gave the lie to that statement. When
the official list was published by the
Treasury Department, saw that ]
had been wrong.
From the day of the publication
Of that list. the good father has be-
come the bitter enemy of President
Roosevelt's administration"
He said the priests plan to make
money out Of nothing would make II
worth nothing"