The Origins and Early Years of ‘The Movement’ in South Australia: 1932-48

Malcolm n January 1946 the term ‘the Cold War’ was hardly known in the Western world let alone in South Saunders Australia.1 True, the English novelist George Orwell Ihad used the expression to describe the ideological confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union in an essay published in October 1945, but it would have registered on the minds of very few South Australians.2 This was before the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946, that ‘an iron curtain’ was descending across Europe separating the capitalist world from the communist bloc. And it was more than a year before American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch delivered another famous speech in the USA in April 1947 declaring that ‘we are today in the midst of a cold war’.3 Churchill’s speech is often considered as marking the beginning of the Cold War while Baruch’s marks the point from which the term came to be popularised.

In South Australia, before any of these events, battlelines not merely between communists and anti-communists but between anti-communists and others (principally the and Protestants) had been drawn. Even before it was appreciated that the Cold War had begun, Catholics had begun to organise against communists and leftists in the labour movement in this state;

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anti-communist cells (or ‘groups’) had been each has had a somewhat loftier aim: Hepworth formed in numerous trade unions; the long- to describe the cultural and intellectual milieu in serving left-wing secretary of the state branch the in which The Movement of the (ALP) had been developed; Warhurst to explain why in the mid toppled and a Catholic installed in his place; and a 1950s the Archdiocese of refused to war of words between Catholic anti-communists support the creation of a political party in South and their many enemies and critics had raged in Australia based on The Movement; and Laffin the letter columns of Adelaide’s principal daily to detail (and to a great extent laud) the role of newspapers. Long before the wartime alliance of the Catholic of Adelaide (Matthew the capitalist and communist nations against the Beovich) during The Movement era.4 Yet none fascist powers had broken up, the elements of a has provided us with a detailed account of its new conflict could be clearly discerned in South origins, achievements, and successes before, Australia’s labour movement. during, and immediately after World War Two. For this a narrative approach is almost In Australia, no less than in other countries of the mandatory. Western world, Catholics loathed the militant atheism and materialism of communism and were By its very nature, The Movement had a murky in the forefront of moves to oppose the influence past. Nevertheless, what will be seen is that, of communists. The focus of the Catholic right long before it was formally established in South was always on communist influence in the trade Australia shortly after World War Two, an ethos union movement and through it the ALP. This of virulent anti-communism had been fostered was because, while the Communist Party almost in the relatively small Catholic community in always attracted negligible support at federal this state. By late 1945 Catholic members of the and state elections, since the late 1930s it had Labor Party had been decisive in achieving several controlled several key unions, especially in the successes in their struggle against communists eastern states, and by 1945 had come close to in the labour movement. True, the ascendancy controlling the Australasian Council of Trade of the Catholic right in South Australia’s Labor Unions. It was in response to the evidence that Party was short-lived; by the end of 1946 the communist power in Australia was suddenly state branch was firmly under the control of growing that a clandestine and secretive group the centre-left and was to remain so for most within the Catholic Church was launched in of the second half of the twentieth century. But in the early 1940s. Its founder was sixty to seventy years later, the right – many of the young, gifted, and charismatic Catholic whom are Catholics – are widely believed to lawyer B.A. (‘Bob’) Santamaria. dominate the South Australian branch and to be able to determine who should be the Labor This article, then, seeks above all to outline premier of the state. What is far less appreciated and explain the establishment of the South is that the numbers men of the right today are Australian section of the organisation that the direct heirs of the young Catholic men (and ten to fifteen years later would become the fewer women) who fought communists (and formally known as the Catholic Social Studies anyone they perceived as their supporters) in the Movement (CSSM) and popularly known as unions and the Labor Party in the 1940s and simply ‘The Movement’ or ‘The Show’. Several 1950s. Arguably, the foundations for whatever scholars – most notably John Hepworth, John influence that Catholics have in the state branch Warhurst, and, most recently, Josephine Laffin of the Labor Party today were laid in the 1930s – have written about The Movement in South and 1940s. Australia from one perspective or another, but

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Origins and early victories of The Movement occurred in 1934 when the Guild invited him, in South Australia as a member of the Campion Society, to address Having said this, it is virtually impossible to a Catholic audience in Adelaide.9 Over the pinpoint exactly when The Movement was formed next ten years the young Santamaria – he was in South Australia. Former National Civic Council only 19 in 1934 – travelled to South Australia operative Gerard Henderson has pointed out that numerous times to speak to groups of Catholics, Santamaria, in his many accounts, has suggested becoming a close friend of Paul McGuire and at least five dates as to when The Movement perhaps even staying with the McGuires. From was inaugurated nationwide from Victoria.5 But late 1941, when the first meetings to discuss The Santamaria, equally correctly, had much earlier Movement were held in Melbourne, Santamaria made the point that its establishment was more regularly visited Adelaide as national director an evolution than an easily identifiable event; it of the National Catholic Rural Movement passed through several stages.6 What was true of (a leading organisation) to Victoria was no less true of South Australia. speak at its annual state conferences.10 Almost certainly on all occasions he visited Adelaide he The roots of The Movement in South Australia inspired many young Catholics with the beliefs can be traced back to at least 1932-33 when that Christianity was under threat, Catholic the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Christianity especially so, and that it was the Margaret McGuire, with the help of a few duty of committed Catholics to help fight priests, founded the Catholic Guild for Social atheistic communism. Studies (CGSS) in Adelaide.7 This was perhaps the most active of a number of societies being The vital years of the CGSS (1930s) and the formed at that time under the rubric of Catholic NCRM (early 1940s) must therefore be seen Action, whose broad purpose was to foster the as the time when the seeds of The Movement spiritual, intellectual, and social development of in South Australia were sown. Certainly, by the Catholics. Throughout the mid and late 1930s closing years of World War Two, there were Guild members studied social issues and trained many Catholics actively opposing communist as public speakers. No insignificant society, the influence in the state branch of the Labor Party guild attracted two thousand Catholics, mainly and in their own trade unions. In the early young people, at one event in its first year. Paul 1960s two political scientists at the University McGuire, born in Petersburg (Peterborough) in of Adelaide, R. Hetherington and R.L. Reid, 1903, was a prolific and versatile writer.8 Like produced a study that has been the starting- Santamaria, he took inspiration from point for many an essay on the political history Pius XI’s papal encyclical, of South Australia in the immediate post- (1931), which implored Catholics to oppose war period.11 Reflecting on the 1940s they ‘totalitarian communism’, and was greatly observed that in 1944-45 the right dominated affected by the attacks on the Catholic Church the ALP in South Australia (although it was during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Until increasingly being challenged by the centre and he joined the armed forces in World War Two, the left). Through regular attendance and sheer he was the driving force and face of Catholic determination, the right, ‘mostly Catholics’, Action in South Australia. controlled numerous sub-branches and even set up ‘ghost’ sub-branches, which enabled it Another strong influence was, of course, to maximise the number of delegates it could Santamaria himself. According to Catholic send to the annual convention and thereby Church historian Margaret Press, Santamaria’s exert an influence out of all proportion to its first known appearance in South Australia real numbers.

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Very likely the first scalp of this Catholic- 6 2 5 3 dominated right in South Australia was taken at 1 the state branch’s annual convention in September 4 1944. In his second report on the state-by-state activities of The Movement, which he delivered to a ’ committee in late 1945, Santamaria noted that: One factor of outstanding importance is the election of a young Catholic as Secretary of the South Australian Labor Party. Previously this An unidentified gathering of ALP notables in Adelaide, office was occupied by an ‘appeaser’ and his almost certainly taken at an annual convention of the replacement by a person as useful as the present South Australian branch of the ALP in the early 1950s. secretary was a major victory.12 Several ‘Movement’ men can be identified, including: 1. Patrick Kilderry, 2. Arnold Drury, 3. John (‘Jack’) Cashen, 4. Ted Goldsworthy,. Also identifiable are former The ‘young Catholic’ to whom Santamaria presidents of the branch, 5. Clyde Cameron, 6. Ken referred was W.J. Welsh, an organiser with Bardolph (courtesy Noel Butlin Archives, Australian the Federated Clerks Union (FCU) of South National University) Australia. Santamaria’s description of Welsh as ‘useful’ suggests that the latter sympathised with but was not a member of the developing Movement in South Australia. The ‘appeaser’ was the elderly Frederick Furner Ward, who had been secretary of the state branch since 1923 (and to this day has the distinction of being the longest- serving secretary of the state branch of the ALP).13

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Why ‘appeaser’? Santamaria was almost certainly wrong’, a member of the Parliamentary Library referring to the fact that Ward had been a leading staff once told me. member of not only the South Australian Council Against War & Fascism (SACAWF) but also, and On the other hand, Santamaria’s account is both even more damning, of the Friends of the Soviet fresh and modest. Writing little more than a year Union (FOSU). after the election, he was at pains not to overstate the influence of The Movement in South Australia. Thus Santamaria clearly saw Ward’s toppling and ‘Whether this position (that is, the secretaryship) Welsh’s win as the product of the Catholic right’s can be held is doubtful, but it seemed impossible efforts in Adelaide. Not so Clyde Cameron, who, at a year ago to dream that it could have come about least since 1939, had been one of several delegates at all’. This brief qualification suggests not only of the Australian Workers Union – the state’s that The Movement in South Australia was in the biggest trade union – to ALP state conventions. fledgling stage but also that it had been very lucky In 1944 Cameron was secretary of the Adelaide that one of the first exercises of its newly-won branch of the AWU, its principal rising star, and power in the ALP had been so successful. Also, already a highly influential numbers man in the Santamaria was perhaps realistic enough to see, Labor Party. More than twenty years ago Cameron and honest enough to admit, that the ascendancy told the author that The Movement had nothing of the Catholic right in the South Australian state to do with it.14 Indeed, he denied that at that time branch of the ALP was unlikely to endure and that The Movement even existed in South Australia. it was only a matter of time before the moderate His explanation was that Ward was too old, would left and the even bigger centre would cooperate not retire gracefully, and had to be voted out. to defeat Welsh. All in all, it seems likely that the Cameron claimed to have organised support for new Catholic right did play a significant role in Welsh and thus engineered Ward’s defeat, albeit toppling the old-style Labor stalwart. somewhat sadly and reluctantly. Another likely victim of the Catholic right at However, Cameron’s explanation is far less about this time was the temporary state secretary believable than Santamaria’s. For a start, it’s of the FCU, Elizabeth Johnston.16 At its monthly difficult to believe that Cameron would have meeting in May 1945, the ALP council accepted used his influence to support a known member of ‘by a large majority’ the recommendation of the right, let alone a Catholic. More importantly, its disputes committee that she be refused his reliability must be called into question. After membership of the Labor Party because she was leaving the Commonwealth Parliament in 1980 a member of the Communist Party.17 Curiously, and becoming an amateur historian, Cameron Mrs Johnston was ‘exposed’ by two Catholics, increasingly exaggerated the importance of his role at least one of whom seems to have insinuated in many developments over the previous thirty himself into the Communist Party and attended to forty years. Without doubt, his ego played meetings at which Mrs Johnston was present. tricks upon his recall of events. Neal Blewett and But even more curious is that a recent biography Chris Schacht are two notable figures within the of the Johnstons makes no mention of this state branch in subsequent decades who recalled event.18 Certainly her defeat had great symbolic Cameron’s tendency to ‘gild the lily’.15 In the 1990s value, not only because she was ‘filling in’ for and 2000s Cameron was notorious for contacting well-known left-winger Harry Krantz, the state organs of the public service such as the National secretary of the FCU,19 but also because she was Library and the Parliamentary Library to correct the wife of Adelaide’s best-known communist this or that fact in their accounts. But, ‘he’s always lawyer, Elliott Johnston.

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This pre-Cold War campaign against communist unions (the Australian Railways Union, the influence in the SA branch of the Labor Party came Federated Clerks Union, and the Amalgamated to a head in the early months of 1946. Following Engineering Union). Anti-communist ‘cells’ resolutions from at least three sub-branches, had so far been formed (or were being formed) and after a heated debate, the ALP council in in fourteen unions, only three of which were mid-February issued an extraordinarily strongly considered under communist control and only worded declaration against local communists.20 It two of which were regarded as ‘in the balance’. denounced the Communist Party as ‘anti-British, The Movement had not yet established cells in anti-Australian, and anti-Labor’ and went on to the Shop Assistants and the Clerks Unions. call it ‘completely totalitarian’. There were strong suggestions of Catholics’ involvement. Ken Bardolph, a Member of the Legislative Council, A furious debate in the News the president of the state branch, the chairman In late 1945/early 1946 there was a flurry of of the ALP council, and a Catholic, ruled more letters to the News, Adelaide’s sole daily evening moderate amendments out of order. One of newspaper, over ‘the communist issue’.22 This the strongest proponents of the declaration was intense debate had as its background the struggle Percival Quirke, a Catholic and a prominent within the labour movement in Australia and Labor Member of the House of Assembly. That even more so what was happening in Europe. the Communist Party was declared ‘a menace to But it was precipitated by two events. One was the sacred rights of the family’ because, under a wave of communist-inspired strikes in New communism, ‘no parental or individual conscience South Wales in late 1945. The other was the rights have recognition’, also suggests Catholic publication by the Australian Communist Party influence. This was the highpoint of Catholic, (ACP) in December 1945 of Catholic Action at and arguably The Movement’s, power within the Work, a thirty-four page booklet well known to Labor Party in South Australia in the 1940s. any historian of the post-war labour movement in this country.23 In this the Communist Party Well before the last of these victories The set out to ‘expose’ the existence of the secret anti- Movement had made small inroads into the trade communist organisation within the Catholic union movement in South Australia. Santamaria’s Church, an organisation it could only identify 1945 report listed no fewer than thirty-five as Catholic Action, devoted to ‘disrupting’ and trade unions in South Australia over which The ‘splitting’ the organised working-class movement Movement was keeping a watching brief. Each in Australia. A second edition of the booklet was union was classified into one of three groups published in February 1946. according to who was seen to be controlling it.21 The Movement considered twenty unions Curiously, the two writers who initiated the as under ‘Genuine Control’, nine as under correspondence in the News denounced both ‘Communist Control’, and six as ‘Control Catholics and communists. W.R. Ninnes of in balance’. Unions under genuine control Modbury condemned both of the ‘two opposing included three of the biggest unions in the state factions bitterly fighting for control of the Labor (Australian Workers Union, Vehicle Builders movement’ and claimed that if this struggle Union, Australasian Society of Engineers); those persisted, it ‘will eventually destroy democracy’. under communist control were relatively small Similarly, J.A. Miller of North Adelaide wrote unions (such as the Waterside Workers Union, that there was a three-way contest within the the Shop Assistants Union and the Ironworkers Labor Party between communists, Catholics, and Union); while those classified as ‘in the balance’ Laborites and that ‘the party will be unable to make included three rapidly growing if not large

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progress unless and until it has cleansed its ranks The sectarian issue tended to distract attention of both Communists and Roman Catholics’. away from the communist issue. One of the most revealing letters came from N. Maxwell of Blair Numerous Catholics reacted. H.J. Savage of Athol who warned that ‘Catholic activity’ in Leabrook criticised Ninnes’ ‘attempt ... to the ALP warranted ‘close scrutiny by Protestant confuse the issue by appealing to sectarianism’. members’. Communists were not only ‘opposed to God and Non-Catholic members of the ALP are Christianity’ throughout the world but here in gradually becoming aware of the bitter Australia were ‘determined to destroy the official underground struggle being waged between Labor Party’ with the ultimate aim of bringing Communist and pro-Communist elements on about ‘a Communist dictatorship in Australia’. T.J. the one hand and Catholic Action on the other Dempsey of Goodwood, too, condemned Ninnes’ for domination of the ALP … The organisation known as “Catholic Action” was formed for the use of ‘the good old sectarian issue’ and warned express purpose of securing control of the trade that in the past communists had always succeeded unions and ALP branches. This body meets in ‘splitting the growing opposition to their tactics regularly on church premises and the members by attributing such opposition to the “Roman” are addressed by priests on methods of Catholics’. But now, many Australians ‘of other infiltrating into leading positions inside the religious persuasions’ saw that ‘communism has unions and ALP branches. no place in the Australian make-up’. D.F. Murphy of Adelaide said he believed ‘the Labor Party does Two things about Maxwell’s letter are worth not object to support from any particular quarter emphasising. One is that it foreshadows one of in its fight against its No.1 enemy, Communism’. the principal arguments that nearly a decade later D.M. MacFarlane of Kensington attacked Ninnes was most often used to condemn The Movement, by quoting a Queensland clergyman who had that is, that its aim was not merely to eliminate recently declared that ‘communism constitutes communist influence in the ALP but to take the antithesis of Christianity’ and communists’ control of the Party. The other is that the letter favourite weapons were ‘banditry, intimidation, was written months before The Movement was and misrepresentation’. even formally established in South Australia. Clearly the virtual war between Catholics and But it was Mrs M.T. O’Leary of Enfield who communists in the organised working-class identified the issue that was obliging Catholics movement had been going on for some time. to confront both communists and Laborites. She defended Catholics, saying that ‘their Donagh MacDonagh of Rose Park vehemently struggle, carried on in the interests of the whole denied that Laborism and Catholicism were at odds community, merits ... commendation, not with one another. ‘The rank and file of Catholic condemnation’. However, by attacking socialism workers – and most Catholics in Australia belong and, with reservations, supporting capitalism, she to the working-class – have been solidly behind would have offended the many in the ALP who the party from the beginning’. Conversely, it was regarded its socialisation objective as an article dishonest to link Catholicism with capitalism. of faith. ‘Socialism’, she declared, ‘is ... seen by Had not Pope Leo XIII severely condemned ‘the Catholics as a step towards communistic tyranny, abuses of that system’? On the other hand ‘the for which reason the socialisation aim of the Communist aim is State capitalism and slavery of Labor Party cannot be approved by adherents of the working class’. the Church’. On the other hand, ‘the Roman Catholic Church supports the private It was inevitable that sooner or later the enterprise system, but abhors its abuses’. Communist Party itself would enter the debate

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and that it would hammer away at the sectarian The distinction so far drawn between Catholic issue. Alf Watt, the secretary of the state branch, Action and The Movement might seem academic warned readers that ‘under the cloak of religion, and unimportant to the reader, but it is not. organisations have been established to disrupt Directly under Watt’s letter in the News was the labor movement and leave the workers at the another, from the Reverend Luke Roberts, who mercy of the employers’ and implied that it was identified himself as the director of Catholic Action quite understandable that ‘some Protestants’ were for the Archdiocese of Adelaide. In it Roberts concerned about ‘this sectarian menace’ and ‘the rejected Maxwell’s claim that ‘the organisation fast-growing danger to working-class solidarity’. known as Catholic Action was formed for the If this went on, he wrote, Australia could see express purpose of securing control of the trade ‘Catholic and Protestant unions similar to those unions and ALP branches’: of Europe before the war’. As diocesan director of Catholic Action, I say emphatically and unequivocally that his Here, in essence, were the arguments that (Maxwell’s) statement is false. Catholic Action communists used against The Movement for was formed and is working for the good of years to come. Whereas many in the Labor Party men’s souls by Christ’s method and example ... doubted the Catholic right’s commitment to the It takes no part in party politics. In fact, it is strictly forbidden to do so. socialisation objective, the Communist Party denounced it as composed of ‘disruptionists’ and ‘splitters’ who were the unwitting tools of On the face of it, this was an extraordinarily capitalists wanting to divide and weaken the disingenuous statement. True, the relationship labour movement. between Catholic Action and The Movement remains a matter of endless debate, but the But there was more to the Communist Party’s two were inextricably linked via the person of case against The Movement than its allegations Santamaria, who was the director of the Australian of sectarianism and divisiveness. Watt stressed National Secretariat of Catholic Action as well as the undercover and clandestine nature of The being head of both the NCRM and the CSSM. Movement (still only known as Catholic Action). And could Roberts possibly have been unaware Again, the source of his information was the report that steps were being taken at that very moment on which Catholic Action at Work was based: to set up a chapter of The Movement in South The secret report of the recent Catholic Action Australia? It demonstrates that the Catholic conference which summarises the Australia- Church was as eager to keep The Movement a wide activities of the movement, is a sensational secret and to protect the Church in general, and and frank recital of anti-working class plotting. Catholic Action in particular, as the Communist It declares that its members “cannot work Party was to ‘expose’ it. publicly” ... but working anonymously, they perform the highest work of Catholic Action The letters from Watts and Roberts sparked a ... Thus the organisation is a secret and sinister body, using the best of sectarian methods to second stage in this fiery debate. Several readers split the organised workers. poured bitter scorn on Watt’s injudicious assertion that the Communist Party, by definition atheistic, believed in freedom of worship and had no It was because the Communist Party stood for intention of interfering with the religious views stronger working class unity, Watt concluded, of Catholic workers. The Reverend T.E. Ruth, that it was ‘the target for the foul anonymous a notoriously anti-Catholic Congregationalist attacks of Catholic Action’. minister in Adelaide, declared that Catholic Action was ‘in fact ... completely sectarian

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and wickedly political’. ‘To make Australia a ‘highly qualified and experienced men’ from completely Catholic nation’, he insisted, ‘is the within his own diocese to work in it.25 Stressing aim of Catholic Action – the most politically the latter, Mannix added that ‘such men are not influential institution in the Commonwealth’. easily found. They will be men who have already proved their worth; men who have a good salary And so it raged for another ten days until, in mid- and a more or less secure position; they may also January, the editor of the News had had enough have family responsibilities’. They must be offered and declared that ‘(t)his correspondence is closed’. ‘a wage and a measure of security comparable to By that point virtually all the arguments that the that they already enjoy’. Catholic right were to use against communists over subsequent years and all the arguments that Beovich wasted no time asking someone to run the Communist Party was to hurl against Catholic ‘The Show’ in South Australia. The man he chose Action – and, later, The Movement – over the was Edward Francis Farrell.26 Born at Parkside same period had been aired. in October 1909, ‘Ted’ Farrell was a distinctly middle-class member of a predominantly working-class Catholic community. Educated The Catholic Church and The Movement in at the Christian Brothers College in Wakefield South Australia Street and at the University of Adelaide, he As just mentioned, at this very time The emerged with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History Movement was being formally and secretly and English, and a Diploma of Education, and established in South Australia under the auspices became a teacher in the state’s primary-school of the Catholic Church. It is well known that system. A regular churchgoer, he was also The Movement received the endorsement active in Catholic organisations, most notably of the Catholic bishops of Australia at an as president of the Assisian Guild (of Catholic extraordinary meeting of the hierarchy held in teachers). Stern, serious, and without an obvious St Mary’s Cathedral presbytery in Sydney on sense of humour, Farrell was a single middle-aged 19-20 September 1945.24 Matthew Beovich, the man. He was an impressive speaker, a highly able Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, took an active organiser, and not least of all, a devout Catholic part in the discussion of what the bishops termed who was steadfastly loyal to the archbishop. ‘the Industrial Movement’ and seconded the After accepting Beovich’s invitation, he left the motion ‘that the Movement be controlled, both Education Department of South Australia in in policy and finance, by a special Committee March 1946. Farrell married in 1951, when he of (3) Bishops’. Over the following decade, it was in his early forties, and he and his wife Celia is equally well known, this committee was not went on to raise a large family. He worked full- deeply involved in the work of The Movement time for the Church until 1964 when he returned and virtually gave Santamaria a free hand. to the Education Department, ending his career as principal of Richmond Primary School (1969-72) The head of the special committee and easily the and Warradale Primary School (1973-74). most enthusiastic supporter of The Movement among the bishops was , the elderly A headquarters for The Movement in South Archbishop of Melbourne. In late November Australia was set up in Todd Building very near 1945 Mannix wrote to Beovich, as he no doubt the south-eastern corner of Wakefield Street and did to other bishops, insisting that finances for Grote Street. Because it was one of several Catholic the new organisation ‘remain available as long as organisations based in Todd Building, which was the need for the suggested Industrial Movement itself only one of several buildings adjacent to St remains’ and asking each to appoint Xavier’s Cathedral, it was relatively easy to maintain

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the secrecy that was thought necessary to beat communists at their own game. In the early 1950s the staff of The Movement reached a peak of at least five: organisers Cyril Naughton (born 1914) and Brian Nash (born 1926), two secretaries, and Farrell himself.27 People like Spencer Killicoat and John (‘Jack’) Cashen (who were both active in the Shop Assistants Union) were in and out of the Todd Building so often that they could almost be considered its part-time workers. From here The Movement coordinated the Catholic campaign to eradicate the influence of communists in the ALP, the trade union movement, and the community at large, and enthusiastically supported non- Catholic anti-communists (for example, A.B. Thompson, secretary of the Australasian Society of Engineers) in the labour movement.

They had little autonomy. Letters from Melbourne were effectively directives from Santamaria, and there is little to indicate that in these early years The Movement in South Australia ever acted B.A. Santamaria and Archbishop Beovich entering independently of headquarters in Melbourne or the Adelaide Town Hall in late October 1943 on the even that it wished to. On the other hand Beovich occasion of the first Catholic Youth Rally in South seems to have trusted Farrell implicitly and to Australia in celebration of the Festival of Christ the have given him and his group a great deal of King. As national director of the National Catholic Rural Movement, the young Santamaria visited Adelaide latitude. Barely a half a mile away (the Diocesan regularly from 1941 and on each occasion spoke to offices were located on the corner of West Terrace meetings of Catholics about the threat of communism and Grote Street) he would only occasionally both at home and oversea, thereby building on work have dropped into Todd Building to see how The begun in South Australia in the 1930s by Paul and Movement was faring. Farrell reported periodically Margaret McGuire. (Image: © Adelaide Catholic to Beovich but it must be stressed that, while Archdiocesan Archives) the archbishop was kept informed about The Movement’s activities nationwide, he was almost in the north and Tranmere in the east.28 totally dependent upon his regional lay officer for At least three-quarters of them had Movement details of what was happening in South Australia. groups at one time or another, the most Beovich’s oversight of The Movement in this state vital being in suburbs such as Hindmarsh, was loose and, until the cataclysmic events of Norwood, Parkside, and Thebarton. Of 1954-57, his role in it was minimal. course, as suburbanisation spread rapidly in the 1950s so did the number of parishes. By Apart from the cells or ‘groups’ in trade unions 1955 there were a further four. Very likely, mentioned earlier, The Movement set up there were proportionally fewer Movement groups in local parishes of the Church. In 1950 groups in the twenty-four parishes in country there were twenty-four Catholic parishes in areas but industrial towns like Whyalla and Adelaide ranging from Brighton and Colonel Port Pirie and railway towns like Port Augusta Light Gardens in the south to Port Adelaide and Peterborough certainly had active ones.

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The parish groups no less than the industrial Margret Mills has noted that ‘its educational groups focused their attention on the trade agenda was much more narrow than that unions, drawing up lists of Catholics in an area, of the CGSS’ (which it replaced).32 NICS’s contacting them, and urging them to attend focus, she rightly claims, was ‘directed more union meetings at which they could help vote towards education in political action, especially out communists and ‘fellow travellers’.29 within the trade unions’. Membership was never large, there were only seventy students In early 1948 the Catholic Church in South enrolled in toto in 1950,33 but it’s not hard to Australia put The Movement on an even firmer imagine that these were the core of the probably and more organised footing when it formed the 200-300 members who constituted The Newman Institute of Christian Studies with Movement in South Australia at the peak of its Farrell as its head.30 Ostensibly an educational activity and influence.34 body designed to train young Catholic men and women in the arts of public life (eg handling themselves at meetings), NICS also acted, as many The re-ascendancy of the centre-left in the of its members later admitted, as a sort of cloak Labor Party for The Movement. The Newman Institute was It must not, however, be thought that in the mid open to all Catholics and freely acknowledged and late 1940s The Movement carried all before to the public. The Movement, on the other it. While the Catholic right was stepping up its hand, remained secret and exclusive. Only those campaign against communism, the centre-left Catholics thought ‘reliable’ – symbolised by the was marshalling its forces in a sustained effort letter R – were asked to join. NICS thus allowed to resume its control over the state branch of Movement members to come and go from Todd the Labor Party. At the state branch’s annual Building without arousing the suspicion of convention in late October 1946, three events not only uncommitted Catholics but also the occurred which were to have a profound effect many on both the Labor and communist left on the fortunes of both the Labor Party and who were hostile to it and eager to learn what it The Movement in South Australia over the next was up to. However, the Newman Institute was few years in particular, and the next thirty in by no means a sham. It fulfilled its stated role general. One was the election of the remarkably while permitting The Movement to pursue its young (he was only 33) but distinctly left-wing own. In practice, the two both overlapped and Clyde Cameron to the presidency of the state complemented one another. ALP.35 Another was the reintroduction of the card vote at annual conventions, a device which This is obvious from the material covered in allowed the largest unions to dominate the NICS lectures. Over any three-year period the state branch and ensured that the sub-branches Newman Institute offered evening classes in would never again be able to control it.36 The subjects that could equip adult Catholics with third, on the face of it, must have seemed like a the knowledge and skills they would need to major victory for the Catholic right. Following defend the Church against its most virulent foe.31 the lead of the New South Wales branch, the The titles of courses almost speak for themselves: South Australian branch officially supported the ‘Industrial Relations’, ‘Modern Economic creation of so-called ‘industrial groups’ within Problems’, ‘Catholic Social Principles’, ‘Modern its affiliated trade unions.37 These were groups, History’, ‘International Affairs’, ‘Communism which Movement members could join, whose and Democracy’, ‘Modern Political Systems’, main purpose, as Murray wrote, was to get ‘Elements of Logic’, and, inevitably, ‘Public ALP-backed rather than communist candidates Speaking’. South Australian Catholic historian elected to union positions.38

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As late as 1947 it must have seemed like the endorsed in October 1946.40 It was essentially left Catholic right was riding a wave that would to the Catholic right, with the imprimatur of the wash communism from the face of the South ALP, to pursue their opposition to communist Australian labour movement. After elections were influence in the trade unions. held for the executive of the South Australian Trades and Labor Council in early February Robert Murray, the doyen of the many writers on 1947, News-Weekly, the Melbourne-based organ ‘The Split’, minimised the role of The Movement of The Movement, applauded the fact that the in the industrial groups, suggesting that its elections ‘resulted in the worst and most sweeping members constituted only about twenty-five defeat of the Communist candidates for years’.39 per cent of their membership.41 But Murray was Indeed, not one communist candidate had been thinking mainly of Victoria, to a lesser extent of returned. And in Thompson and Trevorrow, the New South Wales and Queensland, and perhaps new executive now counted among its number not at all of South Australia. Yet Margaret Press, two of the most active anti-communists in the too, has suggested that the industrial groups in trade union movement in South Australia. To South Australia only had ‘about thirty per cent the Catholic right, for the moment, Cameron Movement membership’.42 We have no way of was their champion. News-Weekly claimed he knowing the proportion of Movement members had been made ‘a particular target by the Reds in each trade union’s industrial group in South because of his association with ALP Industrial Australia but this writer’s impression is that the Groups’ and that he had been placed sixth and figure was much higher. In 1950 a Movement last on the communist ticket. Cameron’s ‘virile report claimed that ‘more than 90%’ of the leadership’, it went on to state, ‘is proving a great industrial groups’ membership nationwide was stimulus to South Australian Labour’. By this it made up of ‘our people’.43 In the eastern states almost certainly meant that the Labor Party, by Movement members joined forces with non- introducing the industrial groups, had virtually Catholic groupers and, at least until 1954, the two sanctioned The Movement’s activities. cooperated more or less amicably and effectively. But in South Australia the Labor Party was never Yet within a year or two Cameron underwent enthusiastic about the groups and withdrew its a transformation in The Movement’s eyes from support from them as soon as it had an excuse. hero to villain. What The Movement had failed Consequently, there is good reason for believing to realise was that Cameron saw the Catholic that The Movement proportion of the groups in right rather than the Communist left as the this state was far closer to ninety per cent than greater threat, not only to his leadership of the twenty-five or thirty per cent. ALP in South Australia, but also to Labor’s socialisation objective, something he considered The industrial groups were hampered as much nothing less than an article of faith. To him, by hostility as indifference. Cameron, it must the Catholic right had simply got its priorities be accepted, had more than a streak of anti- wrong. Communist influence in the trade union Catholicism in him, and was particularly hostile movement, and hence the Labor Party, was to Jesuits who, he believed, were the real force far less in South Australia than in New South behind The Movement.44 For most of the next Wales, Victoria, or Queensland. In retrospect, two years (1947-48) there was tension, fuelled Cameron’s support for industrial groups seems by statements Quirke made in and out of state little more than a ruse whereby he could buy parliament, between the now defensive Catholic time and consolidate his power. From the outset, right and the now-dominant Cameron-led state the state branch of the Labor Party did little to ALP. In March 1947, Quirke cast doubts on promote the industrial groups it had formally the wisdom of Labor’s socialisation objective; in

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July he warned workers against waging militant formation of a local Australian Labor Party (Anti- campaigns for pay rises; and in September he Communist) (later renamed the Democratic criticised Cameron for his hostility to bankers. Labor Party) in November 1955 was inspired by In July the following year he spoke forcefully in Santamaria but frowned upon by Beovich. favour of rejecting the federal Labor government’s prices referendum.45 Eventually the state ALP Today, the influence of both the DLP and the not only forced Quirke out of the Party but also NCC, the political and civic wings of The closed down the sub-branch (Clare) of which he Movement respectively, is even weaker in South had been a leading member.46 Significantly, Clare Australia than in any other state. Yet the legacy was a Catholic-dominated sub-branch in a rural of The Movement cannot be discounted. In the area in which Catholics were heavily represented early twenty-first Century the SDA,47 what used and, indeed, in which the influence of Jesuits was to be called the Shop Assistants Union, is the most strong. Thus, at the same time as the Catholic powerful trade union in South Australia and ALP right was organising itself for its long communist Senator Don Farrell, a former leader of that union crusade, the centre-left was successfully countering and a distant relative of Ted Farrell, has been the the influence the right could exert within the state leading powerbroker in the state ALP since the branch of the Labor Party. early 1990s.48 Many believe that the ideological successors of The Movement in South Australia now control the ALP in this state.49 What began The legacy of The Movement years in the early 1930s is arguably still with us today. By the end of 1948, then, The Movement in South Australia had existed in one form or another for certainly five and arguably fifteen-sixteen years. This essay has been peer reviewed Of course, at this point much of its long and colourful history had yet to be made. There were Endnotes countless milestones to be passed over the next ten 1. The author is grateful to Neil Lloyd for his close scrutiny years alone. The state branch of the Labor Party’s and detailed comments on drafts of this article. 2. withdrawal of support for the industrial groups This article builds upon related work already published by the author, most notably: Malcolm Saunders, in October 1951 was a blow to The Movement ‘Remembering the past and hoping for the future: why in this state but it only caused it to falter not to there was no Labor split in South Australia in 1954-56’, fail. In the early 1950s The Movement achieved in Costar, Love & Strangio (eds), The Great Labor Schism: notable successes in wresting the Ironworkers’ and a retrospective, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2005, the Shop Assistants’ from communist control. pp.76-94; Malcolm Saunders with Neil Lloyd, ‘The Labor party and the industrial groups in South Australia 1946- 55: precluding the split’, Journal of the Historical Society Federal Labor Leader H.V. Evatt’s denunciation of South Australia, no. 33, 2005, pp.71-86; Malcolm of News-Weekly and the people behind it in Saunders, ‘A note on the files of “The Movement” in October 1954 forced The Movement throughout South Australia’, Labour History, no. 99, Nov 2010, Australia to come out into the open and led to pp.179-186; Malcolm Saunders, ‘Studying secrecy: Historians and The Movement in South Australia: 1945- great turmoil within the Church, including the 57’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, no. Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide. What had 39, 2011, pp.122-28. been The Movement eventually divided: a few 3. New York Times, 2 Feb 1992. followed Santamaria and joined his National 4. See, only as examples, John A. Hepworth, ‘The Civic Council; the majority, however, complied Movement revisited: A South Australian perspective’, with the wishes of Beovich and either remained BA thesis, University of Adelaide, 1982; John Warhurst, ‘The Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) in South within a newly constituted Newman Institute Australia, November-December, 1955: “Molotov” Labor or withdrew from ‘direct action’ altogether. The

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versus “Coffee-shop” Labor’, Labour History, no. 32, May 23. Catholic Action at Work. 1977, pp.66-74; the same, ‘The origins of the South 24. Minutes of an extraordinary meeting of the hierarchy held Australian DLP: A documentary note’, Politics, 13,1, May in St Mary’s Cathedral Presbytery, Sydney, 19th and 20th 1978, pp.159-161; Josephine Laffin, Matthew Beovich: Sep 1945. (6 pages), Social Studies Movement, 19/20 a biography, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2008; the same, Sep 1945-30 Oct 1956, Newman Institute (of Christian ‘The public role of bishops: Matthew Beovich, the ALP Studies), Boxes 23 and 25, Beovich Correspondence: split and the Vietnam War’, Australasian Catholic Record, The Movement & Newman Institute, ACAA (Hereafter, vol. 84, no. 2, 2007, pp.131-144; the same, ‘The perils Beovich Correspondence). of piety and politics: Archbishop Matthew Beovich, B.A. 25. Daniel Mannix to Matthew Beovich, 21 Nov 1945, Santamaria and the ALP split’, paper presented at the Beovich Correspondence. Menzies Centre, Kings College, London, 29 Apr 2009. 26. Information on Farrell from: Registry of Births, Deaths, 5. Gerard Henderson, ‘B.A. Santamaria, Santamariaism and and Marriages (South Australia); Margaret-Mary Farrell the cult of personality’, in Paul Ormonde (ed.), 50 Years (eldest daughter); Josephine Laffin; David Shinnick. of The Movement, Eureka Street, Sydney, 1992, p.46. 27. Over the decade or so from 1945 to 1956, the personnel 6. Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, ‘Prelude to “The of the office changed a little, but Farrell, Nash, and Movement”: notes on the years 1939-1943’, Social Naughton were always the core with Nell Butterfield or Survey, Feb 1960, p.5. another (among them Patricia Ryan and Mary Graves) 7. Margaret M. Press, Colour and Shadow: South Australian providing secretarial support. Catholics 1906-1962, Archdiocese of Adelaide, Adelaide, 28. Australasian , 1950 and 1955. 1991, pp.96ff. 29. An excellent description of how Movement operatives 8. Katharine Massam, ‘Dominic Mary Paul McGuire (1903- in South Australia went about mobilising Catholics is 1978)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, (Vol.15), David Shinnick, Youthful yearnings and beyond: memoirs MUP, Melbourne, 2000. of David John Shinnick 1930 to 2000 (volume 1 1930 to 9. Press, p.99. 1970), self-published, Adelaide, 2006, pp.133, 141-45, 10. Advertiser, 2 Sep 1943, p.3. 158. 11. R. Hetherington and R.L. Reid, The South Australian 30. The Newman Institute (April 1948). (This is a five-page Elections 1959, Rigby, Adelaide, 1962, p.39. pamphlet advertising the inauguration of the Newman 12. Reproduced in Australian Communist Party, Catholic Institute on 30 April 1948 and encouraging Catholics to Action at Work, 2nd ed, Melbourne, 1946, p.12. enrol). Beovich Correspondence. 13. Malcolm Saunders, ‘Never favoured and now forgotten: 31. Newman Institute, Syllabus for 1948-1952; enrolments, a tribute to “a good Labor man” ’, Labour History, no. 59, student occupations, agendas for lectures, Beovich Nov 1990, pp.9-12. Correspondence. 14. Interview with Clyde Cameron and James Toohey, 32. Margret E. Mills, Woman: why are you weeping? Women Tennyson (Adelaide), 27 Dec 1988; C.R. Cameron to in the Catholic Church in South Australia: theology and M.J. Saunders, 25 Mar 1989. liturgy, News Weekly Books, Melbourne, 1997, p.27. 15. Personal information derived from conversations with 33. Syllabus. Blewett and Schacht. 34. An estimate based on interviews, conducted between 16. Eleanor Ramsay, ‘Elizabeth Johnston’, in Chris Vevers 2005 and 2011 with about twenty men who had been (comp.), To Unite More Closely, United Trades and Labor either in The Movement in South Australia or on its Council of South Australia, Adelaide, 1984, p.50. fringe. 17. News-Weekly, 23 May 1945, p.3. 35. News, 30 Oct 1946, p.2; 31 Oct 1946, pp.2-3. 18. Penelope Debelle, Red Silk: the life of Elliott Johnston QC, 36. Geoff Stokes, ‘South Australia: consensus politics’, in Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2011. Andrew Parkin and John Warhurst (eds), Machine Politics 19. Meryl McDougall, ‘Harry Krantz’, in Vevers, p.51; Philip in the Australian Labor Party, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, Robins, ‘Harry Krantz: last of the 1943 gang’, Labor 1983, pp.135ff. Herald, Mar 1999, pp.18-19. 37. Workers’ Weekly Herald, 20 Dec 1946, p.1. 20. Advertiser, 15 Feb 1946, p.1. 38. Robert Murray, The Split: Australian Labor in the fifties, 21. Orange booklet (no title), Box 19, File I (Episcopal Cheshire, Melbourne, 1970, p.17. Committee for Catholic Action: 1946-1957), Adelaide 39. News-Weekly, 19 Feb 1947, p.2. Catholic Archdiocesan Archives (ACAA). See (d) ‘The 40. A fuller explanation of Cameron’s attitude toward the position in South Australia’, pp.6, 40-43. industrial groups is in Saunders, ‘The Labor Party’, 22. Letter columns, News, 20 Dec 1945 to 14 January 1946, pp.71-86. p.2 regularly. 41. Murray, p.52.

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42. Press, p.212. 47. The formal title of the SDA is the Shop Distributive and 43. Paul Joseph Duffy, ‘Catholic judgements on the origins Allied Employees Association; that of the Shop Assistants and growth of the Australian Labor Party dispute 1954- Union in the early 1950s was the Shop Assistants and 1961’, MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1967, p.55. Warehouse Employees Federation of Australia. 44. Clyde Robert Cameron, ‘Party Politics and the Catholic 48. Conversation with Don Farrell, Adelaide, 28 Jan 2011. Church’. This is the title of Chapter 7 of an unpublished Don Farrell has been a leader within the Labor Unity manuscript drafted by Clyde Cameron in 1956, rewritten faction since the 1980s and is credited with having by him in 1980, and kindly made available by him to the arranged the deal that made Michael Rann leader of the present writer in Aug 2004. state PLP in 1994. 45. News-Weekly, 9 Apr 1947, p.1; South Australian 49. ‘DLP victory in SA’, Indaily, 9 Feb 2011. See also ‘That Parliamentary Debates (House of Assembly), 7 Jul 1948, Ted, not this Ted’, Indaily, 27 Jan 2011. pp.202-207; 20 Jul 1948, pp.346-50. 46. Advertiser, 13 Aug 1948, p.1.

Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, No. 40, 2012 95 Notes on contributors

John Calvert, MA (UniSA), MA (Adelaide) and a Dino Hodge is completing PhD research at graduate of Morling Theological College, Sydney, the University of Melbourne on Don Dunstan is a part-time lecturer at the Bible College of and homophobia in South Australia during the South Australia. His theses were on the history twentieth century. His published work includes and theological education of the Adelaide Bible Did You Meet any Malagas? on Darwin’s gay Institute (now the BCSA) between 1924 and community, and The Fall Upward, on spirituality 1962 and a biography of Douglas Pike. in the lives of lesbians and gay men. He is [email protected] co-editor of a secondary school social studies text on Aboriginal education and careers, You Don’t Desley is Emeritus Professor in History Get Degrees in Weetbix Boxes. at the Australian National University. She is the [email protected] author of Managing Gender: the State, the New Middle Class and Women Workers, 1830-1930, Alan Hutchings is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, 1989, and Elsie Clews Parsons: Inventing Modern School of the Natural and Built Environments, Life, 1997, and is co-editor, with Joy Damousi, University of South Australia. of Talking and Listening in Modernity and, with [email protected] Penny Russell and Angela Woollacott, of two collections on transnational biography. This Peter Moore began his biography of Robert article is part of her biography in progress of the Torrens at the National University of Ireland, Adelaide-born star of stage and cinema, Judith Dublin, in 1978 under Dr Noel McLachlan, Anderson. the inaugural holder of the Chair of Australian [email protected] History. [email protected] The Revd Dr W.H. (Bill) Edwards AM is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the David Unaipon Brian Samuels has a long-standing interest in the College of Indigenous Education and Research at history of historical organisations and historical the University of South Australia. He interprets publications in South Australia. He retired from in the Pitjantjatjara language in the health and the Public Service in 2011 after long careers with legal sectors. He is the author of An Introduction the State Heritage Branch (under its various titles) to Aboriginal Societies, Thompson Social Science and the History Trust of SA (now History SA). Press, London, 2nd ed. 2004) and editor of [email protected] Traditional Aboriginal Society, Macmillan, London. 2nd ed. 1998. Malcolm Saunders studied or taught history at five [email protected] universities between 1969 and 2009. A graduate of Flinders University, he is now semi-retired. Christine Garnaut is Associate Research Professor His interest in the Movement in South Australia and Director, Architecture Museum, School of grew out of his early work on the anti-Vietnam Art, Architecture and Design, University of South War movement in Australia, several entries he Australia. was commissioned to write for the Australian [email protected] Dictionary of Biography, and an ongoing interest in the post-war history of South Australia. [email protected]

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