Transcript blake-rice-presentation-marac-2007-04

The Papers of
Monsignor Charles Owen Rice
Pittsburgh’s “Labor Priest”(1908-2005)
Ben Blake
MARAC
Spring 2007
“we pray, for labor’s
cause is Your cause,
its Victory,
Your victory.
May it prosper and
carry on its valiant
struggle to gain its
ends which are the
ends of justice,
Americanism and
Christianity.”
Prayer, Founding Convention of the CIO
Congress of Industrial Organization President John L. Lewis and Father Rice
CIO founding convention, Pittsburgh, 1938
Irish Immigrant Parents
Born into a lower
middle class Irish
immigrant family,
New York city, 1908.
His father managed a
grocery warehouse.
Aspiring “Lace curtain”
Irish.
Rice family portrait, 1910. Charles is seated
Childhood in Ireland
“My family in Ireland did
not favor the Rising or
the subsequent guerrilla
action. I had to be
reprogrammed by my
father and my uncle Joe
after I returned to the
States in 1920.”
Pittsburgh Catholic, 4/19/1991
Patrick and Charles in Ireland, 1919
Entering the Priesthood
“From the day I finally
made up my mind to become
a priest, I was determined to
be the activist type and not
only speak my mind, but
support causes and charge
rather than hold back. In the
mid-1930s, there were plenty
of causes, very good ones,
and there was a need for the
Catholic clergy to speak out
and act.”
The Critic, Winter, 1987
Duquesue University graduation photograph, 1930
Quadragesimo Anno
Encyclical of Pope Pius XI On Reconstruction of the Social Order, 1931
“In all honesty, I
did not try all that
hard to reconstruct
the social order,
but I did use the
Pope to help the
unions and criticize
the corporations.”
Pittsburg Catholic, 9/11/1981
Father James Cox’s Army of the Unemployed, Pittsburgh, 1932
Founding the Catholic Radical Alliance
Pittsburgh, 1937
http://www.library.pitt.edu/labor_legacy/ACTU.html
 “we believe workers should share” in the “control,
ownership and profit” of corporations.
 “We talk for unions, help them picket, feed strikers, etc.”
 “We stand against every kind of injustice including
Communism – and we aren’t Red baiters.”
“Priests, Pickets and Pickle Workers”
Heinz Strike, Pittsburgh, June 3, 1937
 “Their was an uproar.
Priests had not picketed
before, anywhere, to my
knowledge.”
 “I, and I am sure the
other priests, would
have supported the
strikers anyway since
their cause was just,
and we were not about
to abandon them to the
Communists or to fate.”
The Critic, Winter, 1987
Father Rice, Fr. Carl Hensler and Msgr. George Barry O’Toole,
union contract ratification meeting, Bohemian Hall
“Absolute Pagan Emperors of Old”
“Little Steel” Strike, Youngstown, 1937
Father Rice addresses steelworker rally,
“Little Steel Strike,” Youngstown,
6/6/1937
“If Christianity were injected into
the labor issue, and if the Charity of
Christ reigned, there rather than the
naked greed of Hell, laborers would
long since have been treated as
partners and cooperators, to be
helped and loved, not as wage slaves
to be exploited and kept down; all
employers would have given decent
wages, decent working conditions,
security of employment and common
liberty to their workers.”
“Talk delivered to CIO workers,” 6/6/1937
Beyond “winning the minds and
hearts of workers to the union side”
Aftermath of the “Little Steel” Intervention, 1937+
“Talk delivered to CIO workers,” 6/6/1937
“Our foray did more than influence the workers, it was a factor in
changing the Church and its reputation from anti-labor to pro-labor.
Priests all over the country began sounding off on the union side …”
Pittsburgh Catholic, 9/4/1981
Catholicism v. Communism
Pittsburgh Debate, 1938
“We cannot accept
the outstretched hand
of Communism because
in doctrine and tactics we
are diametrically opposed….
We abhor class hatred and
would conquer the world by
love.”
Debate text, 10/10/1938
Father Rice and Clarence Hathwaway, Communist Party,
Daily Worker Editor, Pittsburgh, 1938
De-Controlling Communism
Intervention in the United Electrical Workers Union, 1941+
“The battle against
Communists in the labor
movement, locally and
nationally, must go on. As
far as I and my organization
are concerned it will go on
until Communism becomes
the negligible factor it
deserves to be.”
Association of Catholic Trade Unionists column,
Pittsburgh Catholic, 6/26/1941
1947 pamphlet cover
Crusade Against Communism
National Campaign to Expel Communists, 1947-1949
“My chief reason
for listing the
ILWU as a
Communist
controlled union
is that you
control it.”
Text from the pamphlet, 1947
Father Rice to Harry Bridges,
President of the International
Longshoremen’s &
Warehousemen’s
Union, Pittsburgh Catholic,
7/29/1948
Catholic Labor News: Print
Pittsburgh Catholic, 1937-2002
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Catholic Radical Alliance/Association of Catholic
Trade Unionists articles, 1936-1946
“Condition of Labor” columns, 1947-1954
Charles Owen Rice opinion columns, 1959-2002
Catholic Labor News: Broadcasting
Pittsburgh Radio, 1936-1983
 KDKA broadcast,
1936-1939
 WWSW
broadcast, 19391983
 Sunday Talk
Show, 1968-1971
ABC national radio broadcast before
a national steelworkers strike, 1/19/1946
Catholic Labor Education
Educating and Training Local Unionists, Pittsburgh, 1930s-1950s
 Catholic Radical Alliance
labor schools, 1930s
 Institute of ManagementLabor Relations,
Duquesne University,
1945-1950
 Labor classes at the
diocese Adult Education
Institute, 1950s
Braddock steelworkers’ labor school, ca. 1940s
Civil Rights and Labor
Breaking with Union Leaders Over Discrimination, Pittsburgh, 1960s
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Monsignor Rice,
Anti-Vietnam War demonstration, United Nations, 4/15/1967
The African American, “in
fact, is victimized along
the entire economic front,
even when unions in the
field are in his corner, the
decision makers are White
and nearly always they
are equipped with
prejudice.”
Pittsburgh Catholic, 4/20/1961
“Draft dissenters deserve medals”
The FBI Files, 1937-1976
FBI “Correlation Summary,” released 12/14/1970
“Their sons are going to War. And the sons of the
management are not going to war. But instead of being angry
about it, they’re defensive; … They are super patriotic.”
Interview with Ronald L. Filippelli,
United Steelworkers of America Oral History Project,
Penn State University, 10/17/1967
Return of the “Labor
Priest”
Supporting Union Democracy and Militancy, 1970s
“The United Mine Workers
will probably not regain
their old strength, would
not have even if Yablonski
had won, but they yet
may regain their
respectability and become
a union rather than a
façade of a bank and a
trust fund.”
Pittsburgh Catholic, 1/16/1970
Monsignor Race giving sermon, funeral for United Mine
Worker reformer Jock Yablowski and his family, 1/1970
Mon Valley Resistance
Opposing the Steel Mill Closings, 1980s
“To save the communities
and the blue collar class
we might have to go to
community-worker
ownership backed by the
federal government: a
fine alternative to either
communism or radical
capitalism.”
Pittsburgh Catholic, 3/28/1980
Steelworkers protest, US Steel stockholders meeting, 5/1981
The Legacy of Charles Owen Rice
Anti-Communist Zealot or Liberal Maverick?
Pittsburgh Catholic, 9/2/1994
 Separation of church and labor?
 Anti-communism: undemocratic methods to
defend democracy?
 What is liberalism in the context of the Catholic
Church?