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 RiceCIO founding convention, Pittsburgh, 1938

Irish Immigrant Parents

Born into a lower middle class Irish immigrant family, New York city, 1908. His father managed agrocery 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, 4/19/1991Patrick 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 AnnoEncyclical 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

“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

Father Rice addresses steelworker rally, “Little Steel Strike,” Youngstown,

6/6/1937

Beyond “winning the minds and hearts of workers to the union side”Aftermath of the “Little Steel” Intervention, 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

“Talk delivered to CIO workers,” 6/6/1937

Catholicism v. CommunismPittsburgh 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 CommunismIntervention 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 CommunismNational Campaign to Expel Communists, 1947-1949

“My chief reason for listing the ILWU as a Communist controlled union is that you control it.”Father Rice to Harry Bridges, President of the International Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union, Pittsburgh Catholic, 7/29/1948Text from the pamphlet, 1947

Catholic Labor News: PrintPittsburgh Catholic, 1937-2002

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: BroadcastingPittsburgh Radio, 1936-1983

KDKA broadcast, 1936-1939

WWSW broadcast, 1939-1983

Sunday Talk Show, 1968-1971

ABC national radio broadcast before a national steelworkers strike, 1/19/1946

Catholic Labor EducationEducating and Training Local Unionists, Pittsburgh, 1930s-1950s

Catholic Radical Alliance labor schools, 1930s

Institute of Management-Labor Relations, Duquesne University, 1945-1950

Labor classes at the diocese Adult Education Institute, 1950s Braddock steelworkers’ labor school, ca. 1940s

Civil Rights and LaborBreaking with Union Leaders Over Discrimination, Pittsburgh, 1960s

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

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Monsignor Rice, Anti-Vietnam War demonstration, United Nations, 4/15/1967

“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, 1/16/1970Monsignor Race giving sermon, funeral for United Mine Worker reformer Jock Yablowski and his family, 1/1970

Mon Valley ResistanceOpposing 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 RiceAnti-Communist Zealot or Liberal Maverick?

Separation of church and labor? Anti-communism: undemocratic methods to

defend democracy? What is liberalism in the context of the Catholic

Church?

Pittsburgh Catholic, 9/2/1994