The Catholic Worker A

CATHOLIC' WORKER Yol. IV: No. 12 APRIL, 1937 Price One Cent Open Letter to 5and I 0Strikers John Brophy, Danger of Riots In N. Y. Sit-Down . CIO Director In Chicago Slums, During the General Motors strike, you will remember, I stopped to see ·Win Concessions you at the Statler Hotel in Detroit, Reports Dr. Falls Mr. Brophy, and we talked for an hour· or so about Catholics and trade unions and the sit-down technique Woolworth ahd Grand and unity in unions. Housing Conditions Make We talked about how the apostles Sit-Inners Get Sole were foreign agitators of their day, for Danger to Peace Bargain Ri~hts about organizing in th.e south and the brotherhood of man. You told on South Side me how the United Mine Workers After sitting in !or over a week, down there, in spite of Jim Crow Is Chicago headed for a repetition tl1e employees of Grand ll & 10 laws, had the Negroes and whites in oI the infamous race riot of 1919; or, stores in different parts of New York the same ·union, meeting in the same if not for a race riot, for a riot such City won notable concessions. The union hall, at the same meetings, as Harlem witnessed not long ago? employees of some of the Woolworth's and how the officers were some of This is a question which thinking won substantially the. same things. them colored and some oI them colored and white people of Chicago The strike, unmarked by violence white. are asking as they note the growing o.f any kind, and run in a perfectly I remember you saying that at a tension revolving around the hous orderly fashion, was ample proof of meeting . you spoke at before the ing situation and the utterly stupid the superiority of the sit-down as a stewards of the Pullman car porters indifference of civic authorities and technique. While the Woolworth union, the race issue was never organizations to this tension-the strikers in some stores were arrested ~ raised either in tbe speech or in the same indifference which so largely and removed from the stores, the questions afterward, and how you was responsible for the occurrence Grand employees sat in !or the full StJOHN~GOD and Randolph, one of the officers o! of the riot in 1919, as so well de time. both union and company re -Ade Bethune. (Continued on page 3) -Ade Bethune. scribed in the careful study of The specting the tentative compromises Chicago Commission on Race Re made by each. The strikers, for the lations (The Negro in Chicago, U. o! most part, were girls, most o.f them Chicago Press). inexperienced in the labor struggle, Conditions and they carried on remarkably THE SIT-DOWN TECHNIQUE Although colored Chicagoans are well. When your correspondent to be found in many sections of ttte visited the Grand store on 14th St., c1 , the majority are located in he was impressed by the orderliness weU-defined areas, into which they o! it all. Extreme care was taken By PETER :MAURIN have been pressed by the activities that none o.f the cOtnpany property to be a cog in the wheel o.f so-called "improvement" associa was harmed. The strikers ran dances I. ON GANDW LINES was based on the idea ot mass production. tions. whose main purpose seems to and parties to while away the time. 1. Strike news that God wants us be the stimulation of racial preju to be our brothers' keepers. Food was plentiful and the sleeping doesn't strike me, V. SPEED-UP SYSTEM dice. In the Near South Side there 4. They believed accommodations good. There were but the sit-down strike 1. Bourgeois capitalists are located 200,000 colored citizens, about twenty Catholic girls in the is a different strike in the right to work believe in the law a population equal to that of many Grand store. Inability to get to Mass from the ordinary strike. for the worker. of supply and demand. of our cities, pressed into a relatively weighed on them, but their morale 2. In the sit-down strike 5. They beUeved 2. Through mass production, small area, with all the evils of such ranked with the best. you don't strike anybody in being fair bourgeois capitalists restriction: dilapidated quarters, in Some of the terms of the settle either on the jaw to the worker increase the supply toler ably high rents and enforced ment, which was arrived at through or under the belt, as well as the consumer. and decrease the demand. proximity of vice and crime. Two the intervention of Mayor La Guar you just sit down. 6. They believed 3. The speed-up system factors have served to cause a hous dia, were bargaining rights for 3. The sit-down strik1! in doing their work and the extensive use ing shortage in Chicago: the lack of the best they knew bow the union, a 10% pay increase for is essentially ol improved machinery building llJld the destruction of con .ii those receiving Jess than twenty a peaceful strike. for the service have given us demned property. This is a city dollars per week (this comprises 4. It the sit-down strike of God and men. technological unemployment. wide situation, but citizens as a most of the strikers). apprentices remains a sit-down strike, IV. PROPER Pll:OPERTY 4. As a Catholic worker whole have some means of combat4 &ball receive re~lar wages a.fter that is to say, 1. Leon Harmel, said to me: ing it. Many are moving into the working six months, all future dis a strike in which you strike who was an employer, "Ford speeds us up, suburbs or into outlying areas to es agreements shall be referred to an by just sitting down, not a labor leader, making us do cape increasing rents and increasing li.rbiter, one hour for lunch, plus a it may be a means says: "We have lost in one day depreciation of property resulting rest period, recompense for injuries o! bringing about the right concept o.f authority three times as much work from the inability of many owners suffered while working, no discrimi desirable results. since the Renaissance." as before, to keep up repairs. On top of the nation against strikers or loss of 5. The sit-down strike 2. We have not only lost then he lays us off." situation facing all citizens, the col senio1·ity rights. This contract is for must be conducted the. right concept of authority, 5. To speed up the workers ored citizen has the added difficulty six: months. on Gandhi lines, we have also lost and then lay them off of opposition to his making the same The strike was supported by Tm: that is to say, the right concept is to deny the worker adjustment. Several factors stand Cit.THOLrc WORKER and the Cath according to the doctrine of property. the right to work. out clearly: olic Association of Trade Unionists, of pure means 3. The use of property 1. Much o! the property in the representatives of both taking turns Vl. MAKERS OF DEPRESSIONS. as expressed by Jacques Maritain. to acquire more pi;operty 1. Business men used to say: . Near South Side is owned by ab4 (In the picket lines and distributing is not the proper use "We make prosperity sentee landlords, especially by large literature. II. JN THE MIDDLE AGES of property. through our private enterprise." (Continued on page 4) 1. The capitalist system 4. The right use of property 2. According to )msiness men is a racketeering system. is to enable the worker the workers Interview With a 2. It is a racketeering system to do his work have nothing to do C.A.T.U. Passes because it fa more effectively. with the making of prosperity. ,Southern Gentleman a profiteering system. 5. The right use of property 3. H the workers Constitution and. 3. It is a profiteering system is not to compel the worker. have nothing to do From Illinois because it is under threat o! unemployment, with the making of prosperity, Makes Progress a profit system. they have nothing to do 4. And nobody with -the making "I'U tell you right now, I don't has found the way It has been our custom to call I of business depressions. Getting under way fast, the Catho agree with Pope Leo XIII, or with to keep the profit- system for volunteers at this time each 4. The refusal of business men lic Association of Trade Unionists Pope Pius XI, with what they say from becoming year to distribute copies of '.t.HE I to accept the responsibility passed a provisional constitution and about labor," Mr. Geohegan began a profiteering system, CATHOLIC WORKER on May for business depressions . elected temporary officers at its sec th conversation. 5. Ha1'old Laski says: First. On that day there will be is what makes the workers ond meeting last month at 115 Mott Mr. L. I. Geohegan, president . of "In the Middle Ages demonstrations all over the resort to sit-down strikes. Street. world, by every known variety of the Gulf States Steel Company, sat the idea or acquiring wealth 5. It business men Weekly · meetings were held and \ in his office in Birmingham, Ala was limited left movements. May First is also understood business wiU continue to be held at 2 o'clock, \ bama. and looked very emphatic. by a body of moral rules Our Lady's day.

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