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"You will find that what I am advocating is the cornerstone on which nearly every religion since the beginning of man has been founded. You will find that it was urged by Lord Bacon, by Milton, by Shakespeare in England; by Socrates, by Plato, by Diogenes and the other wisest of the philosophers of ancient Greece; by Pope Pius XI in the Vatican; by the world's greatest inventor, Marconi, in Italy; Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt in the United States, as well as by nearly all of the thousands of great men whose names are mentioned in history, and the only great man who ever came forth to dispute these things from the Bible down is this marvelous General Hugh S. Johnson, who labels himself a soldier and a lawyer."
Final fusillade in last week's radio lampooning came from Father Coughlin who took 45 min. on the air to call General Johnson a "flush Bourbon," a "cracked phonograph record," a "political corpse," a "prince of bombast." "The money changers whom the priest of priests drove from the temple of Jerusalem," cried he, "have marshaled their forces behind the leadership of a chocolate soldier forthe purpose of driving the priest out of public affairs. . . . You compare me to Judas Iscariot as a piker, the same Judas who betrayed his Lord and Master. Oh, it is not my province to classify myself with the eleven faithful Apostles. I am content to leave that to the justice of history and to the judgment of God. ... I rejoice that never once have I sold Jesus Christ nor did I ever betray the brothers of Jesus Christ. Can you say as much, General Johnson?" Chiding his accuser for ''vomiting your venom on me," he declared that he disdained to use a report on the General's private life which had been presented to him by some of the onetime NRAdministrator's "fair weather friends."
With throbbing voice and unctuous Christian charity he thumped for the National Union for Social Justice, his organization for ''restoring America to the Americans." After roasting Bernard Mannes Baruch and the "lories of high finance," he declared: "I am characterized as a revolutionary for raising my voice. . . . With the logic of a braggart I have been challenged to divest myself of my priestly vocation if I wish to participate in national affairs. Does our conception of Americanism . . . cling to the outworn theory of the divine right of kings by which is implied that the affairs of good government . . . must be surrendered into the hands of professional politicians?'' When General Johnson had heard the speech he exclaimed: "Pious flubdub."