The Tentacles of a Mighty Octopus

Abstract

Republican Congressman Louis McFadden and Jehovah's Witness leader Joseph Rutherford promoted a 1934 legislative proposal to open American broadcasting indiscriminately to all who could pay, thus effectively making it a public utility. Debate on the proposed bill illuminates some of the tensions in the construction of network broadcasting's liberal public sphere—not only the intolerance of intolerance at its heart but also the tension between the open pluralism of modern liberalism and the strident defense of truth by fundamentalist religious and populist political crusaders who sought to broadcast their views. Conservative populists astutely identified the intrinsically liberal framework of corporate network broadcasting, specifically its need to present an appearance of fostering diversity under a regime of tolerance.

KEYWORDS:

• Radio
• public sphere
• populism
• tolerance
• pluralism
• Jehovah's witnesses

Notes

1. Calhoun, ‘Secularism, Citizenship,’ 88.

2. Streeter, Selling the Air, 6.

3. Goodman, Radio's Civic Ambition, 65–71.

4. Lenthall, Radio's America, 18.

5. 61 App. D.C. 311.

6. Goodman, Radio's Civic Ambition, 3–64.

7. Vaillant, ‘Bare-knuckled broadcasting,’ 195; Doerksen, American Babel, Ch. 5.

8. Kazin, The Populist Persuasion, 4.

9. Berlet and Lyons, Right-Wing Populism, 3.

10. See Godfried, WCFL; Fones-Wolf, Waves of Opposition; Newman, Radio Active; Lenthall, Radio's America.

11. Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 144.

12. Hawley, Problem of Monopoly; Brinkley, Voices of Protest; Kazin, The Populist Persuasion.

13. Streeter, Selling the Air, 105, 109; McChesney, Telecommunications, 97.

14. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 9–11.

15. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 18–9.

16. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 13–4.

17. Rutherford, The Crisis, 6–9.

18. Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, 47, 70; Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 199.

19. Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, 47, 70; Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 12.

20. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 202–5.

21. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 16.

22. Vipond, ‘Censorship in a Liberal State,’ 78–81; Strawhan, ‘The Closure of Radio 5KA.’

23. Jenkins, Hoods and Shirts, 117–24.

24. Spivak, Plotting America's Pogroms, 47.

25. Congressional Record 1934, pt. 4, 3543.

26. Hangen, Redeeming the Dial, 23–9.

27. Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, 71.

28. Rutherford, Government, 226.

29. Rutherford, Preparation, 332.

30. Benjamin, The NBC Advisory Council, 51.

31. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 202–5.

32. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 47.

33. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 55.

34. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 198, 207, 26.

35. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 127.

36. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 156.

37. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 141.

38. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 158.

39. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 167.

40. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 142.

41. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 187.

42. Peters, Courting the Abyss, 143.

43. Rutherford, Vindication, 65.

44. Rutherford, The Crisis, 41.

45. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 193.

46. Brown, Regulating Aversion, 11, 39.

47. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 154.

48. Radio Broadcasting: Hearings, 197.

49. Spivak, Plotting America's Pogroms, 49.

50. Peters, Judging Jehovah's Witnesses, 17.

51. Walsham, Charitable Hatred, 39.

52. Fish, The Trouble with Principle, 60; Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance.

53. Although see Greenberg, ‘Idea of the Liberal Media.’