Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1973 With Benefit of leC rgy: Catholic Church Support for the National Agricultural Workers Union in Louisiana, 1948-1958. Thomas A. Becnel Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Becnel, Thomas A., "With Benefit of leC rgy: Catholic Church Support for the National Agricultural Workers Union in Louisiana, 1948-1958." (1973). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 2380. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/2380 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Poad Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 73-27,822 BECNEL, Thomas A ., 1934- WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY: CATHOLIC CHURCH SUPPORT FOR THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL WORKERS UNION IN LOUISIANA, 1948-1958. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1973 History, modem University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFIIMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. J WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY: CATHOLIC CHURCH SUPPORT FOR THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL WORKERS UNION IN LOUISIANA, 194-8-1958 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department o f H istory by Thomas A. Becnel M.A., Louisiana S tate U n iv ersity , 1962 May, 1973 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author owes his thanks to many people who contributed their time and energies to make this study possible. Professor Burl Noggle, whose lectures and seminars first aroused interest in the topic, directed and guided the work through the various stages of research and writing. Professors M. T. Carleton and James Bolner, who had seen portions of the work as seminar papers, and T. Harry Williams and John Loos added useful suggestions. The author’s colleague at Nicholls State University, Professor Marie Fletcher, proofread portions of the manuscript. Those especially helpful in locating and making avail­ able information for the study include the staff of the Southern Collection of the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina, Allie Bayne Webb of the Louisiana State University Library, Clifton Johnson and his secretary Hattie M. Perry of the Amistad Research Center at Dillard University, Sister Marguerite Brou, Archivist of the Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Tom Butler and Henrietta Jeansonne of the Nicholls State University library, and E. J. Clement who supplied several obscure letters and American Sugar Cane League materials. Among the clergymen who helped to supply information vital to the study are Archbishop Philip Hannan, Assistant Chancellor Lanaux Rareshide, Bishop Joseph Vath, Monsignor i i Charles J. Plauche, and priests such as Vincent O’Connell, Roland Boudreaux, and Wilbur Todd. H. L. Mitchell graciously allowed the author to subject him to several long interviews dealing with the agricultural labor movement. Henry Pelet, E. J. Clement, T. M. Barker, Thomas Scott, Warren Harang, Charles Breaux, Abdon Portier, and E. Becnel, Jr., provided much background knowledge about many phases of the sugar industry. Sadie T. Comeaux typed the manuscript and displayed far more than a typist’s interest in its progress. But of all the people who helped to make "With Benefit of Clergy" possible, most credit must go to the author’s wife, Audrey, who, along with Jeanne Louise, Suzanne Alice, Annette Marie, Thomas Jr., and Emilie Lorraine, deprived herself in order to further his education. ABSTRACT Contrary to popular belief, the agricultural union movement in Louisiana during the 1950Ts was not an unprece­ dented phenomenon. It is reminiscent of similar union activity in the 1880's and compares to present-day attempts to secure for farm laborers higher wages and better working and living conditions. Primarily because of the influence of the Catholic Church, H. L. Mitchell, co-founder of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, brought his National Agricultural Workers Union (an outgrowth oF the STFU of the 1930's) to Louisiana around 1950 to organize agricultural laborers and small farmers. The union, which had turned its attention to migrant workers when tenant farming diminished during World War II, began in 1948 to concentrate on organizing farm laborers engaged in agribusiness operations, especially those in Cali­ fornia. The NAWU soon reached a stalemate in its West Coast strike/against the., gigantic DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation. At about the same time Catholic Church leaders in Louisiana were expressing concern over conditions in the sugar industry, whose workers, one priest said, were isolated behind a Cane Curtain. In 1952 Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel and his pro-labor priests offered M itchell’s union more assistance than it had ever received from any other church group. The NAWU, which had considered coming to Louisiana to organize cane field workers in the 1930’s, then made Louisiana the center of its operations until the union faded into oblivion in 1958. The voluminous STFU papers and the extensive archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans provide, along with infor­ mation from clergymen who advised Archbishop Rummel, the basic source of information for this study of the extent and signi­ ficance of the NAWU’s Louisiana movement. Because the most intimate records of the Louisiana Farm Bureau and the American Sugar Cane League are not open to researchers, the strategy and tactics of the two major sugar industry groups cannot be ascertained fully. However, sources such as the minutes of executive committee meetings of the Cane League, letters to the NAWU and to clergymen, interviews with industry spokesmen, and fragments of information disseminated by the lobby groups shed considerable light on management’s view of the church-union movement. The evidence indicates conclusively that continuity rather than change characterizes the Louisiana sugar industry, which maintains some pre-Civil War features even today. Despite Catholic Church support, sugar strikes in the 1950’s, like those v in the 1880’s, ended in failure. In the two decades since the early fifties, church and labor leaders have been unable to bring workers under National Labor Relations Board coverage, or provide them with minimum wage protection, unemployment compen­ sation, or relief from a Louisiana right-to-work law that applies solely to agricultural workers. Even if recent criticisms of the sugar cane industry are only partly accurate, they reveal that much remains to be done about housing, education, and health care services for the predominantly black labor force that still remains in some respects behind a Cane Curtain. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................................................................................................... i i ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... iv PROLOGUE: AGRICULTURAL LABOR IN LOUISIANA FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO 1938 ....................... 1 CHAPTER I THE CHURCH AND THE CANE CURTAIN .................................. 34 I I BUILDING A BASE FOR THE UNION...........................................