As we talked about in our last article, in the early 1930s, the Catholic Church—led by Cardinal William O’Connell of Boston—publicly condemned radio crooners like Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée. O'Connell labeled crooning as "base, degenerate, defiling," and un-American, arguing that the soft, intimate singing style enabled by new microphone technology was a form of moral corruption. Not only did he argue that the soft sounds coming into listeners' living rooms was not manly, but he also warned that these swooning sounds were being whispered directly into the ears of young women.

This panic got so intense that in 1932, the New York Singing Teachers Association backed the stance, and anti-crooner novelty songs were recorded urging men to fight "these public enemies" coming through the radio airwaves.