16-POINTS CAMPAIGN

Taranaki Daily News, 26 April 1935, Page 5

16-POINTS CAMPAIGN

FATHER COUGHLIN ORGANISING. ATTACK ON U.S. ADMINISTRATION. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 7.50 p.m. Detroit, April 24. In the first move towards mobilising his vast following into an active political agency Father Coughlin, the * radio priest,” addressed a local rally of his “National Union for Social Justice” at Detroit to-night. According to speakers similar gatherings will be held throughout the nation until an organisation is effected along the lines of a regular political party, although Father Coughlin insists his only aim is a “lobby” for his 16-point legislative campaign and that he has no aspirations to assume political leadership himself. To-riight 17,000 league members crowded the Olympia stadium and thousands more outside heard the speeches through amplifiers. Representatives of the National Farmers’ Union and of the American Federation of Labour:participated in the programme, as did a number of congressmen, including Senator Gerald P. Nye. Mr. Thomas, the chairman, made the startling claim that 8,500,000 voters had signed petitions supporting the 16-point programme, the principal feature of which is the abolition of the Federal Reserve Bank system and substituting for it a Governmentally controlled central bank. The presence of several prominent New York -cotton brokers is regarded as a significant indication that the opponents of the Administration’s crop curtailment policy may gather under Father Coughlin’s banner in a determined attack on the Agriculture Adjustment Administration.