The Y.P.S.L. leads demos against an East Coast organizing by Detroit’s reactionary demagogue and one of the most popular figures in 1930s America, the Jew-baiting, labor-hating ‘Radio Priest’ Father Coughlin, whose movement was among the strongest fascist currents of the period.

‘Labor Swings into Anti-Fascist Action’ from Challenge of Youth (Y.P.S.L.). Vol. 3 No. 7. July 1, 1939.

SMASH THE FASCIST GANGS!

A man is stabbed on a public square for objecting to filthy anti-semitic slogans shouted by the hawkers of a fascist newspaper.

A labor school is broken into and all the furniture and office equipment destroyed.

A labor member of the city council is threatened by a hooting, howling crowd of fascists.

A meeting of a women’s peace league is broken up by an invasion of fascist hoodlums.

A Jewish high school student is kidnapped and branded on the neck with the letter “H” to denote Hebrew.

***

Where did the above take place? In Berlin during Hitler’s fight for power? No, not these specific incidents. Thousands of similar incidents did take place in Berlin at that time.

But the above incidents took place in the United States! Each incident is culled from the daily press for the month of June. Involved in each of them, as shown by the detailed stories elsewhere in this issue, are the agents of Father Coughlin–Number One Contender for the post of “Fuehrer” of the American fascist movement.

Unheralded by the daily press, another event took place on the anti-fascist front during the month of June. Determined to put an end to the beating and stabbing of anti-fascists by the hoodlums of the Coughlinite, Nazi Bund, and Silver Shirt organizations, several score of young workers in New York organized the ANTI-FASCIST LABOR DEFENSE GUARD. Here is the living answer to our slogan–

“Smash the Fascist Gangs! Build Workers Defense Guards!”

Over 50,000 anti-fascists answered our call last February to picket the Nazi Bund meeting in Madison Square Garden. Now they can give organized expression to their desire to wipe out the fascist gangs by joining the ANTI-FASCIST LABOR DEFENSE GUARD.

Organized and trained for defense, the American working class will prove the vast fighting superiority of the wage worker, fighting to defend the labor movement, over the misled, pimply-faced, middle class students and the paid sluggers who make up the fascist combat squads.

Build the ANTI-FASCIST LABOR DEFENSE GUARD!
Defend the trade unions and political organizations of labor!
Defend the workers’ right to the streets!

SMASH THE FASCIST GANGS!

Philly Workers Deal Blow to Coughlinism

PHILA., Pa. The fascist movement of this city, still smarting from the defeat it received from the Socialist Workers Party and Young Peoples Socialist League when the threat of a picket line by the latter forced them to call off their mass meeting, is again attempting to unify its forces and deliver attacks on the Jews and on the labor movement.

An example of this attempt to revive their anti-Semitic and anti-labor movement was the fact that a few weeks ago a meeting scheduled by the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom was called off because of a threat delivered through constant phone calls that their hall would be bombed! It is significant that the Fascists got tough on a puny, pink tea ladies’ group, instead of threatening a workers’ organization. They still remember all too vividly that the labor movement of Philadelphia is determined to meet blow for blow–with several additional ones thrown in for good measure.

The spearhead of the fascist movement is the Coughlinites, who until recently paraded under the phoney name of “Philadelphia Committee for the Defense of Constitutional Rights.” In addition to this gang, there is the “Anti-Communist League” (also anti-Semitic), with sub-groups such as the League to Protect Schools from Communism.” These organizations are in close cahoots with the Nazi Bund and the Silver Shirts.

Coughlinite Fuehrer

The Fuehrer of the whole crew is Thomas A. Blissard, personal agent of Father Coughlin. The other leaders are Joseph Gallaher, an avowed Nazi sympathizer, and the notorious and hilarious Bessie Burchett (called “two-gun Bessie” because she carries guns to “defend herself from the Communists.”) Sister Bessie is a high school teacher who’s been transferred from school to school because the students refuse to tolerate her fascistic spouting. Recently the students of West Philadelphia High School went on strike to have her removed. And she was transferred elsewhere a teacher without a school willing to tolerate her.

This labor-hating, anti-Semitic coalition first went into action by breaking up a meeting of the “Committee for Racial and Religious Tolerance.” They started heckling and then used strong-arm tactics. Fourteen were arrested, including their leaders, Blissard and Gallagher. When the fascists’ cars were searched, copies of “Social Justice”, featuring anti-Semitic headlines, other anti-Semitic literature, and lead pipes were found. Upon investigation by the Y.P.S.L., it was discovered that Blissard’s bail was provided by the Nazi Bund!

But the Fascists were not to be stopped by such little impediments. They planned to hold a large, provocative mass meeting in the Metropolitan Opera House–a direct challenge to the anti-Fascist workers and youth of Philadelphia.

Workers Respond

And their challenge was answered by the Socialist Workers Party and the Young People’s Socialist League (4th Int.). The SWP and YPSL appealed to the workers: not another inch to the Fascists–stop them now while there’s time–let’s have a monster picket line and demonstration around their meeting so that they’ll find out what the Phly labor movement thinks of Fascist skunks and they’ll crawl back into their stinking holes! More than 20,000 leaflets were distributed.

The Fascists got scared. In their imaginations, they already saw thousands of workers massed in demonstration against them! And they backed down–called off their meeting and crawled back to their holes!

But not for long. They’ve gradually begun to sneak out a bit. They try to incite one racial group against another, one religion against another. For example, they come down to a bunch of Irish boys and incite them to pick a fight with a neighboring bunch of Jewish boys, course not!

These young people, who are aware that there’s something wrong with the rotten life of youth under capitalism and who want to do something about it, must understand that the only way to solve their problems is in the ranks of the working class fighting for a new world!

Workers Answer Fascist Hooligans

NEW YORK. The last weeks witnessed increasingly insolent attacks upon working class organizations here by the Coughlin fascist movement. In two of the three major encounters, however, the fascists were checked by the readiness of the Socialist Workers Party to lead anti-fascist workers in giving them battle.

Among the latest developments were:

1) The attempt of the Bronx branch of the SWP to hold an open-air meeting in the vicinity of Fordham University, Coughlin stronghold, developed into a test of strength between the fascist and anti-fascist forces. Though the hundred or more hooting and yelling Coughlinites made it extremely difficult to conduct an orderly meeting, the presence of some seventy-five SWP members and supporters and an uncertainty as to how the audience of 500 or more would side in a physical clash, caused the fascists to refrain from an attack upon the platform.

Stage Anti-Fascist Parade

The anti-fascists followed their meeting with a parade through the predominantly middle class Fordham Road neighborhood. Their shouts of “Down with Father Coughlin” and “Up with Workers Defense Guards” brought divided reactions–some passers-by applauding and others booing. Two workers who followed the parade to party headquarters joined the S.W.P.

2) On the day following the Fordham Road action, the Coughlinite hoodlums invaded Union Square, traditional radical center. They hawked their rag “Social Justice” by shouting filthy anti-semitic slogans. A Jewish passer-by was provoked into a fight and stabbed. All members at the nearby SWP and YPSL headquarters were immediately mobilized and went into action. A counter-demonstration was organized that drove the fascists off the square.

3) On the day following the Union Square action, a Sunday, fascist hoodlums broke into the Debs Labor School, operated by the Norman Thomas Socialists, and thoroughly wrecked the place. This is the first time a labor hall has been invaded by fascists in this country.

All three occurrences, plus the many minor encounters between workers and fascists, again emphasize the crying need of the day: Build the Anti-fascist Labor Defense Guard!

Challenge of Youth was the newspaper of the Young People’s Socialist League. The paper’s editorial history is as complicated as its parent organization’s. Published monthly in New York beginning in 1933 as ‘Challenge’ associated with the Socialist Party’s Militant group (the center/left of the party around Norman Thomas). Throughout the 30s it was under the control of the various factions of the YPSL. It changed its name to Challenge of Youth in 1935 and became an organ of Fourth Internationalists, leaving to become to the youth paper of the Socialist Workers Party in 1938. In the split of 1940, the paper like the majority of YPSL went with the state capitalists/bureaucratic collectivists to become the youth paper of the Workers Party.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/challenge-of-youth/390701-challengeofyouth-v03n07w16.pdf