The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-03-06
WAhOH 0, IJ0b-------
MESSIAHS ARE
ALL WASHED UP,
SURVEY SHOWS
Long Dead, CoughIin Los
ing, Olson III, TaImadge
No Threat, Stokes Says.
BY THOMAS l.. STOKES
Times Special Writer


DETROIT, March 6.-Where are
the "menaces," the Fascist chief
tains, the third-party leaders of day
before yesterday?
The question is provoked by a
visit to the home precinct of the
radio priest of Royal Oak, the Rev.
Charles E. Coughlin about whom
reams we're once written and many
prophecies delivered in the heyday
when hin signal was good for a
deluge Of kilograms upon Congress.
Father Coughlin's power seems to
be on the wane. His contributions
? are falling off. In the West 1 found
r him no longer an influence. The
Townsend Plan has submerged him.
( He is still a factor in this Middle
West industrial area, but he seems
TO carry less weight-except in one
corner.
That Is down in Cincinnati, where
the Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow, a for
mer Congregationalist minister who
. conducts the so-called Peoples
Church." has recently increased
membership in the Union for Social
Justice, the radio priests organiza :
lion, and made it factor in local
politics.
what About the Others?
Death removed Huey P. Long and,
though his crowd still controls
Louisiana, he leaves no one who
could arouse the masses nationally
as the Senator was able to do.
The La Follettes of Wisconsin are
playing along with President Roose-
Velt this year
Gov. Floyd Il. Olson of Minnesota,
once dynamic leader of Farmer
Labor forces in the Northwest, is
fighting i'll health.
Gov. Eugene Talmadge of Georgia
seems to be getting nowhere with
bis cracker philippics against Presi-
dent Roosevelt. He has demonstrat-
ed that he can whip up no national
enthusiasm for his negative leader
ship.
The Townsend Plan has generated
a Heterogeneous movement, rather
than produced a dynamic leader.
~ The real danger to the country to-
day seems to lie in the pressure of
large organized elements, such as
the Townsendites, upon Congress to
tap the Treasury. This, of course,
would become effective if there were
a President who would either yield
or capitalize such an element to his
own ends. In the case of the SOL
dier bonus. the President was unable
TO stem the tide.
Principalities and Movies
Looking back across visit with
the country, one outstanding i'm
preston is of the little political and
economic principalities which dot It
here and there and make it highly
interesting, even when people wear
the same sort of clothes from coast
to coast, see the same movies, and
read the same magazines.
There is the principality of Wis
consin, ruled by the La Toilette
brothers-Bob and Phil-who are
attempting a governmental expert
ment approaching the socialistic
state and who can give old-timers
lessons in practical politics.
This is a part OF the bigger prin-
cipality in the central Northwest,
taking in Floyd Olsons Farmer
Labor domain in Minnesota, with
sympathizers still farther west in
North and South Dakota) which
may become the nucleus of third
party movement in 1910 under La
Toilette generalship.
< Those people have learned to
think in unorthodoX terms,
Colorado, Idaho, California
Then there is the principality of
Colorado, which the barons of min
ing and big business who once
ruled the state, are trying to re-
! claim from the liberal and pro-
gressive Senator Edward P. Costi
: gan by using the back-slapping
Z Gov. Edward G. Johnson.
2 Gov. Ben c. Ross, the exuberant
farmer. is trying to seize the prin-
cipality of Idaho, long the personal
property of Senator William E.
Borah, who's trying to capture the
presidency and doesn't seem to care
who steals his upland empire with
its tall forests and its silver and
copper mines.
+ With beauty and grandeur in
contrast to the Sordidness of its pol