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Copyright, 1918

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<£aràinids Srs&riur,
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^alitntore.

L37585
February 18,

1918.

ay dear iir Cullen:

*>

1 beg to pre nent to you The Sere rend

John A. 3yan, D.D., Professor of the Catholic University,
Washington,

D.C., «to has consented to prepare & series

of three article» on the subject of Socialism, for the
pages of The Evening Mail.

I feel that you are fortunate

in having Dr. Hyan write for you as he is well versed in
the natter, having studied it fr<® every angle, and is a

clear, concise, strong irriter.

It is my earnest hope the*

these articles «111 accomplish much good in influencing

men towards a better understanding of social and econ­
omic problems.

With kind regards,

I am.

7ery faithfully yours,

t/.
Archbishop of Baltimore.
Ur. John Cullen,
The Me* fork Evening Mall.
Mew fork.

PREFACE.
The following articles appeared in The New
York Evening Mail during February, 1918, and
are reprinted in pamphlet form by that paper
as an appreciation of the labors of Dr. Ryan.
It is the belief of the editors that they have
been allowed to present one of the most import­
ant contributions to a discussion of great mo­
ment.

The author of this series was selected by
( ardinal Gibbons, who when asked to restate
the attitude of the Catholic Church on socialism,
delegated Dr. Ryan to prepare the series and
personally approved it.

The Catholic Church and
Socialism
In the course of the present war all the belligerent
governments have extended enormously their control
and operation of industry. Here in the United States
we behold the public authorities fixing the price of coal
and food, regulating the kinds of bread that we shall
eat, operating the railroads, building and sailing ships,
and erecting houses for workingmen. Competent stu­
dents of the subject fully expect that many of the new
forms of state intervention will be continued for some
considerable time, if not indefinitely, after the arrival
of peace. While none of these activities, nor all of
them together, constitute socialism in the Lrue sense,
they look like installments of or an approach to a social­
istic reorganization of industry. Therefore, the time
seems fit for a brief restatement of the attitude of the
Catholic Church toward socialism, and toward certain
industrial proposals which are improperly called social­
ism.
The authoritative and precise doctrine of the church
on these subjects is found in certain encyclicals and in­
structions of Popes Leo XIII. and Piux X. In his en­
cyclical, “On the Condition of Labor” (May 15, 1891),
the former pontiff condemned socialism explicitly as in­
jurious to the workingman, destructive of the indi­
vidual’s natural rights, and perversive of the sphere of
the state. The proposals of the socialists, said Pope
Leo, are harmful to the laborer, inasmuch as they would
deprive him of the opportunity to invest his savings in
land for the increase of his resources and the better­
ment of his condition in life. They violate natural jus­
tice, since they would prevent men from safeguarding
the future of themselves and their families through the
possession of durable and lucrative property in the
5

■

I

earth’s unfailing storehouse. They tend to a social con­
dition of manifold disorder and dissatisfaction; for the
state ownership and management of productive property
would destroy individual incentive, cause “the sources of
wealth to run dry” and “level down all to a like condi­
tion of misery and degradation.”
In his encyclical on “Christian Social Action” (De­
cember 18, 1903,) Pope Pius X. explicitly reaffirmed the
main propositions of his distinguished predecessor’s de­
fense of private property and denunciation of socialism.
Two objections have been raised to these papal pro­
nouncements: First, that Pope Leo spoke only of land,
not of capital; second, that the socialists no longer de­
mand that degree of state ownership of land that the
Pope condemned.
PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND AND MACHINERY
To the first objection the sufficient reply is that all
the principles and arguments set forth by Pope Leo in
defense of private ownership of land apply with sub­
stantially equal force to the artificial instruments of
production. And they have been so interpreted and ap­
plied by all Catholic authorities. With regard to the
second objection, it is not possible to speak quite so def­
initely, since the socialist position on land tenure and
management has been somewhat modified since the pub­
lication of Pope Leo’s encyclical. Many European so­
cialists of authority concede that the operation of small
farms would better be left to individuals, while the So­
cialist party of the United States has gone so far as tc
declare that it is not opposed to the “occupation and
possession” of land by actual cultivators. In the matter
of urban land it is probable that the majority of pres­
ent-day socialists would permit a person to own the
site upon which his home was erected, together with a
small garden. It seems certain, however, that they
would not allow any one to draw profit from land which
he did not himself cultivate or occupy.
A less extensive modification seems to have taken

x

place during the last twenty-five years in the socialist
proposals concerning capital. The authoritative spokes­
men of the party to-day would permit a i individual to
°wn those tools and machines that he cov'd operate by
himself or with the assistance of one <·.· two other
workers. Apparently they would not prevent the own­
ership and management of some of the larg ■ productive
establishments by the workers themselves organized in
co-operative associations.
Making due allowance for all these mitigations of
the ancient rigor of socialist doctrine, we still find the
scheme liable to substantially al! the objections brought
against it by Pope Leo XIII. Socialism still contem­
plates government ownership and management of all
land used for commercial and industrial purposes, of all
mines, of all but the smallest farms, and of substan­
tially all but the very small artificial instruments of
production and distribution. And it still calls for the
abolition of all rent and interest, and of all incomes
derived merely from the possession of property.
PAUPERIZATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
Therefore, the worker would not be permitted to
become the owner of anything from which he could
derive an income when he became disabled. He could
not put his money into savings banks, nor stocks, nor
bonds, nor any other kind of interest-bearing wealth.
Inasmuch as only a slight proportion of the workers
could be self-employed on the small farms, in the small
hand industries, and in the few co-operative establish­
ments that the socialist state could afford to permit,
the great majority would be deprived of that sense of
independence, manliness, self-reliance, self-respect and
economic power which can come only from property.
It is true that revenue-bearing property is not an
indispensable means to adequate provision for the
future of the worker and his family. A system of state
insurance might, in theory at least, be a satisfactory
substitute; that is, so far as concerns the things that

7

can be bou; λ with money. But no system of insur­
ance, nor ai scale of wages, can provide a man with
those psychi goods which are an integral element of
normal life, . id which are only second in importance to
food, clothing and shelter. Under socialism the worker
would be diractly and constantly dependent upon the
state, from he cradle to the grave. All his life he
would be merely a hired man. He could become con­
tented with this degenerate status only after he had lost
all of that initiative, that self-respect and that ambition
which are essential to an efficient and worthy human
existence.
To retort that the majority of the workers are even
now deprived of any solid hope of becoming property
owners is to miss the point of the issue entirely. This
sad condition is no necessary part of the present sys­
tem. Not the abolition but the reformation of the ex­
isting social and industrial order is the proper and ade­
quate remedy. We shall discuss this specifically in a
later article.

WORKER’S LIBERTY INVADED.
The liberty and opportunity of the worker would be
further diminished by his inability to control the most
important details of his own life. Under socialism the
state would be the only buyer of labor and the only
seller of goods. No matter what the provocation, the
worker would have no choice of employers. He must
work for the state or starve. Likewise he must buy the
necessaries and comforts of life from the state, and be
content with what the state sees fit to produce. Instead
of the wide variety of choice now offered by competing
dealers he would find only the few standard types of
goods regarded as sufficient by the state. It is no an­
swer to these objections to prophesy that the state
would prove a more generous and humane employer
than the majority of existing captains of industry, and
that it would provide all the variety of goods that is
really required by genuine human needs. The point is
8

that in these vital matters the worker would be denied
all liberty of choice. This sort of freedom is a valuable
possession in itself, on its own account. The mere pro­
vision of abundant material goods is not an adequate
substitute or compensation.
Another grave injury to individual liberty would
proceed from the unlimited power of oppression pos­
sessed by bureaucrats and majorities. The officials of
the socialist state would have not merely political power
but unlimited economic power. While they could in
time be dislodged by a majority of the voters, the ma­
jority itself would enjoy the same power of unlimited
tyranny. For example the workers in the principal in­
dustries could effectively combine for the purpose of
making their own remuneration exorbitantly high, and
the remuneration of all other workers inhumanly low.
Indeed, there is no practical limit to the economic op­
pression that a majority might inflict upon a minority.
Even if we could bring ourselves to put up with a
regime of industrial and social servitude, we cannot wel­
come a system that would inevitably lead to industrial
and social bankuptcy. When we turn from individual
to social considerations, we find that a socialist organiza­
tion of industry would, as Pope Leo said, end in uni­
versal “misery and degradation.” It would not work,
for the simple reason that it could not command the
motives that are required for efficient and sufficient
production. The salaried directors of industry would
not have the indispensable incentive that is to-day pro­
vided by the prospect of indefinite gain. Even if they
had the incentive, they would lack the power; for their
positions would be dependent upon the masses who
worked under their direction. They would not endanger
their place of authority by reprimanding or discharging
men who refused to do a normal day’s work. That the
majority would shirk, would work only as much and a’
long as they liked, is as certain as the certainty that tbo
majority of industrial tasks will remain forever in
herently unpleasant. The average man will work hard
9

at them only when compelled by sheer necessity, such as
the fear of losing his job. Make the workers masters of
the industrial establishment, and this fear would be
ended. Therefore, the only possible outcome would be
an immense reduction in the social product, with the
resultant universal “misery and degradation.”
SOCIALISTS IGNORE HUMAN NATURE.
The naive expectation of the socialists that men
would work as hard for the common weal as they now
do through love of gain or fear of loss is a futile and
pitiable act of faith. It has no basis in experience. The
assumption that the socialist mechanism would effect a
revolutionary transformation in human motives and in­
clinations, and convert men at one stroke from egoists
into altruists, indicates that the socialist believers are
in the habit of using their emotions instead of their
intellects for the business of thinking, and are unable
to distinguish between aspirations and facts. They ask
us to accept hope and prophecy in place of the uncom­
fortable conclusions of history.
So far as the economic proposals of socialism are
concerned, the condemnation pronounced by Pope Leo
XIII. and Pope Pius X. remains in full vigor, and the
reasons for the condemnation are still substantially
applicable and conclusive. In the next article we shall
consider socialism in its moral and religious aspects.
Tn the preceding article we showed that the economic
proposals of socialism have fallen under the ban of the
Church, because they are a menace to individual and
social welfare, and therefore to individual and social
justice. In the present paper we shall try to show that
the socialist movement is antagonistic and harmful to
Christian morals and the Christian religion.
By the socialist movement we mean the organized
association of socialists that exists to-day, with its
writers, speakers, books, journals and other methods of
propaganda. It is the means by which socialist prin-

cipies are explained, defended and diffused. Now the
socialist movement advocates not merely the collective
ownership and management of the instruments of pro­
duction but certain theories of philosophy and ethics and
a certain attitude toward religion.
It professes not merely an economic theory but a
philosophy of social evolution and of life. This philoso­
phy is directly opposed to the doctrines of Christianity.
The main tenet of this philosophy, and the main rea­
son of this hostility to Christian principles, is the theory
of economic determinism. While this phase is for­
midable, it is as intelligible as its synonyms, “the eco­
nomic interpretation of history,” “the materialistic con­
ception of history,” “historical materialism,” etc.
According to' the theory of economic determinism,
all social institutions and social beliefs are at bottom
determined, caused to be what they are, by economic
factors and conditions, by the methods of production
and distribution. At any given time the existing sex
relations, governments, laws, forms of religion and edu­
cation, and the corresponding beliefs, doctrines and opin­
ions, are what they are rather than something else,
because the prevailing industrial system is what it is
rather than something else.
As the economic factor is dominant and determin­
ing among the social phenomena of any particular
epoch, so it has produced and determined the social
changes that have taken place throughout history. The
evolution and variations in domestic, governmental and
educational institutions, and in the ethical, religious
and political beliefs of men, have all been brought about
by changes in economic factors and conditions, by
changes in the way men got their living.
marriage and private property.

A few illustrations, taken from standard socialist
writers, will help make clear the meaning of the theory:
When all goods were owned in common sexual pro­
miscuity prevailed, because there was no economic rea-

11

son for stable unions. When private property was in­
troduced the monogamie family came into existence be­
cause men wanted their wealth to go to their own chil­
dren exclusively.
Primitive Christianity was mainly a revolutionary
movement of the slaves and proletariat of the Roman
empire; medieval Catholicism was the outcome of the
feudal economic organization; Protestantism was a
revolt against the economic tyranny of the church as
regards tithes and indulgences. Slavery gave way to
serfdom and serfdom to individual liberty when the
economic masters of society found that these institu­
tions were no longer profitable.
To-day the prevailing morality sanctions all ethical
notions and all practices which tend to increase the
profits of the capitalist. Thus for the determinist.
It is now universally recognized by competent stu­
dents of the subject that economic conditions do exert a
considerable influence upon other social conditions, and
even upon men’s practical notions of right and wrong.
If economic determinism meant no more than this,
it would not necessarily make the socialist movement
hostile to Christianity. As understood by its leading
exponents, however, the theory goes far beyond this
moderate conception. These men have been, with
scarcely an exception, believers in philosophical ma­
terialism. That is, they hold that all existing things are
matter, that there is no such thing as spirit. Hence
they deny that the will of man is free, and assert that
the economic factors in society produce all the afore­
mentioned effects and changes necessarily, as heat
melts ice and rain wets the ground.
Some of the more important conclusions regarding
morality which flow from this theory may be briefly
set forth. Since men have not free wills, they cannot
properly be blamed for the evil nor praised for the
good that they do. They are no more responsible for
their actions than are dogs and earthquakes. The
tyranny of the capitalist and the dishonesty of the

—

12

laborer are alike caused by forces over which they
have no genuine control.
Hence the frequent assertion in socialist writings
that the evils of our economic order are due to the
system and not at all to the individuals. Obviously this
rejection of the human soul, of free will, and of human
responsibility is directly contrary to Christian prin­
ciples.

MARRIAGE A TEMPORARY CONTRACT, BREAK­
ABLE AT WILL.
As indicated above, the economic determinist holds
that the present form of domestic society is an effect
of the present form of industrial society. When the
system of private ownership of the means of produc­
tion has been supplanted by collective ownership, the
relations between the sexes will change correspondingly.
Woman will then be “economically independent,” and
therefore will bind herself to a man only when moved
by love, and will remain with him only as long as love
remains. The union of man and woman under social­
ism will be subject to dissolution at the will of either
party.
In the words of Morris Hillquit, “most socialists fa­
vor dissolubility of the marriage ties at the pleasure of
the contracting parties.” (Socialism; Promise or Men­
ace ” p. 163.) The antagonism between this view and
the Christian principle of marriage is patent
Other anti-Christian implications of the theory of
economic determinism are: The child belongs primarily
to the state; all actions which are truly conducive to
the establishment of socialism are morally justifiable;
the welfare of the socialist state is the supreme princi­
ple and determinant of right and wrong; and against
the state the individual has no rights.
The attitude of the socialist movement toward re­
ligion is explaned as well as stated by the socialist
daily, the New York “Call”: “The theory of economic
determinism alone, if thoroughly grasped, leaves no
13

room for a belief in the supernatural.” (March 2, 1911.)
Assuredly so. If all that exists be matter, and if all
social institutions, changes and beliefs be produced by
economic forces, there is no place in the universe for
God or a responsible human soul. The economic determinist cannot consistently be a religious believer. And
he must logically expect the disappearance of religion
in the socialist state. For if religious ideas be deter­
mined and caused by the prevailing mode of production,
they must pass out with the passing of the present sys­
tem. Christianity cannot survive the destruction of its
capitalistic basis.
Such is the attitude toward religion that we should
expect intelligent socialists to take if they were logical.
When we examine their utterances we find this expec­
tation fulfilled. Speaking summarily, we assert that
all the great leaders, most of the important books and
journals and a very large proportion of the oratorical
productions of the socialist movement are in greater or
less degree opposed to Christianity; and that the num­
ber of socialist leaders, journalists and oratorical utter­
ances that avow a belief in any form of supernatural
religion is negligible. We have not the space to prove
these assertions by adequate citations, but we submit
three which may arouse sufficient interest to induce
further investigation.
SOCIALISM INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGION.

James Leatham, a prominent English Socialist, de­
clared that he could not recall “a single instance of a
person who is at one and the same time a really earnest
socialist and an orthodox Christian.” (“Socialism and
Character,” pp. 2, 3.)
William English Walling, an able and well-known
American socialist, tells us that the majority of social­
ists are firmly convinced that socialism and modern sci­
ence must finally lead to a state of society where there
will be no room whatever for religion in any form.”
(“The Larger Aspects of Socialism,” p. 381.)

14

Morris Hillquit, whose competency to represent the
mind of the socialist movement will not be questioned,
is “inclined to believe that the majority of socialists
find it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile their gen­
eral philosophic views with the doctrines and practices
of dogmatic religious creeds.” (“Socialism: Promise or
Menace?” p. 204. Chapter VI. of this work contains an
abundance of quotations from, and references to, other
socialists on this subject)
Some of our readers will object that they can be­
lieve in the economic proposals of socialism without ac­
cepting the immoral and irreligious theories outlined
in the foregoing paragraphs.
We reply by agreeing with them. Economic deter­
minism is not essential to a belief in economic socialism
Moreover, there exist socialists who have made and do
make this distinction. Neither the little band of socalled Christain Socialists, nor the select coterie of
Fabian Socialists have subscribed to this materialistic
and anti-Christian philosophy.
But these groups are relatively unimportant ele­
ments in the socialist movement as a whole. The vast
majority of the socialists of the world are adherent®
of what is known as Marxian or International Social­
ism, which does profess this attitude of hostility to
Christian ethics and the Christian religion.
The few followers of the international movement
who still retain their Christian faith belong for the most
part to that element of the rank and file that has not
had the opportunity or the capacity to become acquaint­
ed with the underlying socialist philosophy.

ONLY ONE ATTITUDE POSSIBLE FOR CHURCH.
According as they make progress in the study of
the fundamental principles, they will imitate the great
majority by yielding to the anti-rel:gious theories and
influences that permeate the leadership, the literature
and the entice atmosphere of the organization. Such
has been the unvarying lesson of experience.

In this situation there is but one possible attitude to
be taken by the Catholic church. It is that of vigilant
and ceaseless opposition to the concrete, living institu­
tion called the Socialist movement.
Even if the movement were aiming at the holiest
and most beneficent social order that can be conceived,
it would necessarily fall under the ban of the Church.
An organization and movement that is saturated with
materialism and irréligion, that constantly propagates
an un-Christian philosophy of life, that sooner or later
makes atheists or rationalists of all, Catholics included,
who remain within its ranks—cannot reasonably expect
to escape the active opposition of the divinely appointed
custodian of Christian morals and Christian faith.
When this movement aims, as it does aim, at a social
and economic order which would be destructive of in­
dividual rights and disastrous to human welfare, it is
doubly damned. Both as a movement and as an eco­
nomic goal, both as a means and as an end, socialism
deserves the condemnation of the Catholic Church.
In the two following articles we shall show that the
church not only does not oppose but sanctions all the
reforms that are necessary and desirable in the present
economic system.
In the presidential election of 1912 the Socialist
candidate received about 900,000 votes, of whom not
more than one-sixth were members of the Socialist or­
ganization. A very large proportion of the other fivesixths did not accept the complete Socialist programme.
They voted the Socialist ticket mainly as a protest
against economic abuses and to indicate their desire
for radical improvements. They identified socialism
with social reform.

This attitude is still held by thousands among the
working classes, who do not realize the full meaning
of the socialist programme, and who think that the
socialist party is the only agency that is striving for
the abolition of present economic wrongs.

16

Hence a great number of them assumes that all
opponents of socialism must also be antagonists of so­
cial reform and defenders of the evils of capitalism
To all who hold this opinion, and to all other persons
whose minds are open to evidence, we say that all the
necessary reforms of our industrial system are either
explicitly set down or implicitly authorized in the offi­
cial teaching of the Catholic church.
These propositions we shall prove from that same
encyclical, “On the Condition of Labor,” which con­
demns socialism. Indeed, the discussion of socialism
occupies only one-fifth of that document, the other
four-fifths being devoted to remedies and reforms.
(Copies of the encyclical can be obtained for ten cents
each from the International Catholic Trust Society, 408
Bergen street, Brooklyn, or from any Catholic book
store.)
The language in which Pope Leo characterizes the
evils of the existing system and the need of reform is
worth noting for its vigor, insight and sympathy. He
declares that “some remedy must be found, and quickly
found, for the misery and the wretchedness pressing so
heavily and unjustly on the vast majority of the work­
ing classes;” that “workingmen have been surrendered,
all isolated and helpless, to the hard heartedness of em­
ployers and the greed of unchecked competition;” that
“a small number of very rich men has been able to lay
upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke
that is little better than slavery.”
These sentences are found in the opening para­
graphs of the encyclical; near the close we find this
statement: “The condition of the working classes is
the pressing question of the hour, and nothing can bp
of higher interest to all classes of the state than that
it should be rightly and reasonably adjusted ” The
encyclical was published May, 1891.
The principles and proposals laid down by Pope Leo
may be conveniently presented under four heads: Re­
ligion; Individual Action; Private Associations; the
17

State. The first three will be dealt with in the present
paper.

THE PART OF RELIGION.
The Pope repudiates the assumption that the church
is so preoccupied with spiritual things that she has no
care for men’s temporal interests. “Her desire is that
the poor should rise above poverty and wretchedness,
and better their condition in life.” “While the chief
treasure of society is virtue, it is by no means a mat­
ter of small moment to provide those bodily and ex­
ternal commodities the use of which is necessary to
virtuous action.”
In these two sentences are summarily stated the
church’s attitude toward the material wellbeing of the
masses, and the rational basis of that attitude. The
church is not a social reform organization, nor is so­
cial betterment her main function. Her mission is to
bring men to religion and to make them virtuous. But
they cannot be virtuous without a certain decent amount
of material goods. Furthermore, they cannot be vir­
tuous unless they practice justice and charity in all the
relations of life, including those of an economic char­
acter; therefore, the church must lay down and in­
sist upon observance of all moral principles.
“No practical solution of the social question,” says
Pope Leo, “will be found apart from religion and the
church.”
This statement will not be denied by any person who
is acquainted with the facts of history, human nature
and present conditions. When we consult history we
lenm that the Christian principles concerning the dig­
nity and sacredness of the individual human person,
the essential equality of all persons, the brotherhood of
all men in Christ, and the dominion of the moral law
over
as wellj u
nvor the industrial —
as
otheT actions of men.
brought about the
tb* abolition of siavery the establishment of innumerable works
and institutions of compassion and beneficence, the
prohibition of usury and
18

the rise of political democracy. None of these reforms
and institutions originated in a non-Christian land.
When we study honestly the tendencies and limita­
tions of human nature we are forced to the conclusion
that men will never set up and maintain a regime of
social justice until they become convinced that the
supreme law of life is the moral law. The most cun­
ningly devised social statutes will not be able to compel
men to act justly in their economic relations, unless they
are impelled by a living and enlightened conscience.
And the voice of conscience will ordinarily have little
effect if it be not recognized as the voice of God.
This means that an effective conscience cannot be
developed or maintained without the assistance and
direction of religion. When we consider the profoundly
immoral maxims that have ruled economic practices and
relations for more than a century, such as that every
free contract is a fair contract, that all gain is lawful
that can be obtained without the use of physical force
or flagrant deception, that power and cunning may with
impunity exploit weakness and ignorance, we see no
hope of permanent remedies until these perverse prin­
ciples are dislodged by religion and religious morality.
Neither legal ordinances nor humanitarian appeals
will be effective. The determining mass of men must
first become convinced that these maxims are contrary
to the law of morality and the law of God. They can­
not be brought to such a conviction by any social agency
except organized religion.
But religion will never succeed in this work of moral
conversion by the mere preaching of generalities. To
proclaim that men must obey God, practice virtue and
observe the Golden Rule will not suffice. What is
needed is specific moral instruction, specific application
of moral principles to the carrent industrial practices.
This was precisely what Pope Leo did, in so far as it
was possible in a brief document that had to be adapted
to the varying economic conditions of the entire world.
Let us glance first at his statements under the head of

19

INDIVIDUAL ACTION.

Christian morality, says Pope Leo, teaches that the
laborer should carry out fully and honestly all equitable
agreements, and should abstain from all forms of vio­
lence against persons and property. Here we have a
direct condemnation of labor-loafing and the use of
physical force in industrial disputes.
On the other hand, employers, continues the Pope,
must respect their employes as human beings instead of
treating them as bondsmen, or “merely as so much
muscle or physical power”; must not tax work people
beyond their strength, nor employ them at tasks un­
suited to age or sex; must give them rest from toil on
the Sabbath and opportunity for the practice of re­
ligion; and, above all, must pay fair wages, instead of
exploiting the worker’s needs for the sake of profit.
Finally, the Pope declares that property owners have
not the right to do what they please with what they call
their own, for they are only stewards of their posses­
sions; hence, when they have made reasonable provision
for their own needs, they are obliged to use what re­
mains for the benefit of the neighbor.
All these directions are proclaimed by Pope Leo to
be matters of strict moral obligation, most of them be­
ing required by the law of strict justice. Yet they
are openly ignored by thousands upon thousands of
employers.
PRIVATE ASSOCIATIONS.
The Pope points out that the right of men to unite
in private associations, such as a labor union, is a right
granted by nature, and therefore may not be denied by
the state. In our day and country this right is practi­
cally never hindered by the public authorities, but it is
openly ignored by those employers who refuse to permit
he.r employes to organize, or who refuse to deal with
the representatives of labor organizations.
The aim of labor unions, says the Pope, should be
20

“to help each individual member to better his condi­
tion to the utmost in body, mind and property.” He
also recommends associations composed of both em­
ployers and employes to deal with matters that are of
common interest, and to prevent discord and strikes.
This is a justification of those periodical trade confer­
ences that have been fostered by the labor unions and
the more enlightened groups of employers.
Pope Leo refers to and praises highly the work of
the medieval guilds. As we know, the guilds were not
merely associations of workingmen in the ordinary
sense, but to a great extent were co-operative societies
in which the workers were the owners of the tools of
production, and had common rules for carrying on the
business of their craft. The modern counterpart of the
guild is not the labor union, but the co-operative pro­
ductive association.
It should be noted that a co-operative system of pro­
duction is quite another thing than socialism. In the
former the workers of a given industrial establishment
individually own particular and definite amounts of
property in that establishment; under socialism the
whole community would own all the industries in gen­
eral, no individual being able to say that a definite por­
tion thereof was his private property.
The co-operative establishment is managed ex­
clusively by the workers engaged in it; under socialism
every establishment would be managed by the nation
or the city.
Up to the present the co-operative movement has
achieved practically all its successes in agriculture
banking and merchandising. Industrial justice and in­
dustrial democracy demand that it should become widely
extended in the field of production.
A social order in which the majority of the wage
earners do not own the tools with which they work,
nor any important amount of other productive prop­
erty, is abnormal and cannot endure permanently. The
majority of the workers must be enabled to become in
21

some degree capitalists as well as wage earners, owners
in part at least of the instruments of production in
their respective industries.
The frequency with which Pope Leo speaks of the
necessity of making the workers property owners, to­
gether with his sympathetic references to the guilds,
renders it very probable that he would have favored
the principles of co-operative production. Indeed, such
an attitude would have been in the direct line of
Catholic tradition; for, as Cardinal Gasquet observes,
the basis of property in pre-Reformation times was
not individualism, but “Christian collectivism.”
Thank God, we Catholics are in no degree responsi­
ble for the invention of the cold, ugly, soulless thing
called modern capitalism, with its industrial autocracy
at one extreme and its proletarian masses at the other.
Without the Reformation the capitalism that we now
know would have been humanly speaking impossible.
Pope Leo praises and recommends for imitation the
action of those persons, not themselves members of the
wage-earning classes, who unite in various associations
for the benefit of the laboring people. In our own
country are many such organizations; for example, the
American Association for Labor Legislation, the Na­
tional Child Labor Committee and the National Con­
sumers’ League, all of which have produced splendid
results. It is regrettable that the Catholics of the
United States have not taken a more prominent part
in such associations.
Indeed, it must be admitted that we have as yet
given but a feeble and ineffective response to the in­
junction that Pope Leo lays down toward the close of
the encyclical, namely, that Catholics “are not free
to choose whether they will take up the cause of the
poor or not; it is a matter of simple duty.” This dec­
laration was repeated in even stronger and more spe­
cific terms by Pope Pius X.
In the next and final article of the series we shall
22

*

consider Pope Leo’s teaching on the part in social re­
form that should be taken by the state.
IL THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE.
While Catholic teaching rejects the complete domina­
tion of industry by the state, as proposed in the social­
ist scheme, it is very far from advocating the opposite
extreme of individualism and laissez faire.
Those who believe that the government should pur­
sue an industrial policy of non-intervention will find no
comfort in the traditional attitude of the church. And
they will be grievously disappointed with the encyclical,
“On the Condition of Labor.” Of the space devoted
by that document to methods of betterment fully onethird deals with the positive duties incumbent on the
state.
Among the general propositions which the encyclical
sets forth under this head are the following: Public
laws, institutions and administration should “be snch
of themselves as to realize public wellbeing and private
prosperity;” the state should especially “provide for the
welfare and comfort of the working classes; this is
simple justice, for “it may be truly said that it is only
by the labor of workingmen that the states grow rich;
while the rights of all persons should be protected, “the
poor and helpless have a claim to especial considera­
tion.”
The general principle of state intervention is this:
“Whenever the genera! interest or any particular
class suffers, or is threatened with mischief which can
in no other way be met or prevented, the public anthoritv must step in and deal with it.
' The last sentence contains an implicit indorsement
of all legislation for the regulation and control of in­
dustry that is genuinely necessary. Tn anv particular
ease the question of state action is to be determined hr
the facts: is such action the only adequate remedv. If
it is it should he utilized. Pope Leo’s principle is em­
pirical and scientific, avoiding both the aprion deman
23

of the socialist for universal state control, and the
apriori demand of the individualist for the complete obsence of state control.
Another significant fact of the foregoing quotations
from Pope Leo is his frank acceptance of the principle
that the state has the right and duty of legislating for
the benefit of particular classes, more especially those
that are incapable of defending their own interests. In
taking this position the Pope merely restated the tradi­
tional doctrine of the church. According to that doc­
trine, the object of the state is not self-glorification, nor
merely the common welfare as such, but the good of
all individuals and all classes of individuals. The hypo­
critical opposition to labor laws on the ground that they
constitute class legislation finds no sanction in the
Catholic doctrine of the functions of the state.
The specific applications which Pope Leo makes of
his general principles to labor conditions are worthy of
brief notice.
TO REMOVE CAUSE OF STRIKES.

( A)—Strikes. When the workers go on strike, says
the Holy Fath°r, “it is frequently because the hours of
labor are too long, or the work too hard, or because they
consider their wages insufficient.” The law should pre­
vent such trouble by “removing in good time the causes
which lead to conflicts between employers and em­
ployed.”
(B)—Religion and Rest. The laborer should be pro­
tected in that most precious form of property, “his soul
and mind.” for “no man may with impunity outrage that
human dignity which God himself treats with rever­
ence, nor stand in the way of that higher life which is
the preparation for the eternal life of heaven,” hence
the laborer must be guaranteed “rest from work on
Sunday anil certain holy days.” In general, “he ought
to have leisure and rest in proportion to the wear and
tear of his strength,” for “it is neither just not human

24

to grind men down with excessive labor so as to stupefy
their minds and wear out their bodies.”
(C) —Hours of Labor. The proper length of the
working day depends on “the nature of the work, on
circumstances of time and place, and on the health and
strength of the workman.” The general rule is that
labor should not be “protracted over longer hours than
strength admits.”
(D) —Woman and Child Labor. “Women are not
suited for certain occupations; by nature they are fitted
for home work.” Children should not be placed “in
workshops and factories until their bodies and minds are
-sufficiently developed,” for “too early experience of life’s
hard toil blights the young promise of a child’s facul­
ties, and renders true education impossible.”
(E) —A Living Wage. “Wages, we are told, are
regulated by free consent, and therefore the employer,
when he pays what was agreed upon, has done his part,
and seemingly is not called upon to do anything beyond.
The only way, it is said, in which injustice might occur
would be if the master refused to pay the whole of the
wages, or if the workman should not complete the work
undertaken; in such cases the state should intervene
to see that each obtains his due—but not under any
other circumstances.
POOR MAN’S RIGHT TO LIVING.
“This mode of reasoning is to a fair-minded man by
no means convincing, for there are important consider
ations which it leaves out of account altogether ♦
“Every man has a right to procure what is required in
order to live, and the poor can procure it in no other
way than through work and wages.
“Let it be taken for granted that workman and em­
ployer should as a rule make free agreements, and in
particular should agree freely as to the wages ; nev ertheless there underlies a dictate of natural justice more
imperious and ancient than any bargain between man
and man. namely, that remuneration ought to be snffi2e·

cient to support the wage-earner in reasonable and fru­
gal comfort. If, through necessity or fear of a worse
evil, the workman accept harder conditions because an
employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is
made the victim of force and injustice.”
The claim of the worker to a living wage is here
declared by a strict moral right. Although this principle
had been for centuries an integral part of Catholic
moral teaching, and had received some specific recogni­
tion in the demands of labor unions during the years
immediately preceding Pope Leo’s encyclical, the doc­
trine itself had never before received such precise, posi­
tive and authoritative expression. If the doctrine is all
but universally accepted to-day a great part of the
credit is due to Pope Leo XIII.
Two points concerning the Pope’s statement of this
doctrine require a word of comment and explanation.
They are: the meaning and scope of “reasonable and
frugal comfort,” and the part which Pope Leo would
accord to the state in the enforcement of the living
wage.
As to the first, there cannot be the slightest doubt
that the Pope intended the wage to be understood as
comprising not merely the means of keeping body and
soul together and continuing at work, but as including
all things required for the reasonable maintenance and
development of the human faculties, physical, mental,
moral and religious.
No fair-minded person can read the encyclical
through and escape the conclusion that the Pope had
not only a warm sympathy with the condition and
aspirations of the laboring classes, but a reasoned and
profound conviction of the intrinsic worth, dignity,
sacredness and rights of the worker as a person, as a
human being with an inviolable claim to a normal and
human life.
Again, while the Pope did not specifically say in th
passage quoted above that the living wage should 1.

sufficient for the worker’s family as well as himself,
other parts of the encyclical make the fact clear be­
yond any reasonable doubt. In the second paragraph
following he declares: “If a workman’s wages be suf­
ficient to enable him to maintain himself, his wife,
and his children in reasonable comfort, he will not find
it difficult ♦ · * to put by some little savings and
thus secure a small income.” Evidently the “reasonabl·
comfort” and the “natural wage” which Pope Leo hain mind is not the mere equivalent of personal susb
nance.

STATE ACTION AS LAST RESORT.
The second question is whether the Pope would have
the living wage enforced by civil law. Our only reason
for hesitating to give an affirmative answer arises
from his explicit statement that recourse should be had
to societies and boards, or some other method, “in order
to supersede undue interference on the part of the
state.” Should circumstances require, he says, “the
state should be appealed to for its sanction and protec­
tion.”
In other words, he would have the state called in
only as a last resort. He does not say that the state
should never enter this province. All the declarations
quoted above, including that regarding a living wage,
are found in that section of the encyclical which he him­
self specifies as the discussion of the functions of the
state. And the second of the longest paragraphs quoted
above shows that the Pope explicitly rejects the theory
that the state should not interfere with the terms of the
wage contract, and clearly implies thnt it may fix the
terms and enforce a living wage.
Those few Catholics who still oppose the movement
for a living wage by law can get little comfort from
the encyclical. Before they can appeal to it with any
show of reason they will have to prove that the evil
of insufficient wages can he "met or prevented” by

27

some other means. That task will keep them busy
for a long time; so long, in fact, that they will all be
dead before it is finished.
In the meantime, Catholics who read Pope Leo’s
statements without bias, and who are not afraid to face
the deplorable facts of the wage situation, rejoice that
the man whose name is written in the annals of the
United States Supreme Court as the official upholder
of the first minimum wage law in the United States
is a priest, the Rev. Edwin V. O’Hara.
(F)—Private Property. Pope Leo condemns the in­
equitable division of property which enables one party
to “grasp the whole of labor and trade, to manipulate
for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources
of supply, and which is even represented in the coun­
cils of the state itself.”
Therefore, he says, “the law should favor ownership
and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of
the humbler class to become owners.” By this means
“the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will
be bridged over."
POPE’S REMEDY FOR OUR LAND PROBLEM.
The Pope is speaking of ownership of land, and his
words are strictly applicable to the rural portion of the
United States. All observing students are becoming
alarmed at the growth of tenancy in our agricultural
sections, and realize that systematic and far-reaching
assistance will have to be given by the government to
convert the masses of tenant farmers into farm owners.
The principle of Pope Leo’s statements can be ap­
plied quite as well to conditions in the cities. As pointed
out in our last article, no permanent solution of the
social question will be obtained until the majority of the
wage earners become owners of productive property,
preferably and so far as possible in the industries in
which they work. Neither high wages, nor comfortable
working conditions, nor security of employment, nor
provision against all the unfavorable contingencies of

28

■ _________

life, nor all of these together, will render the position of
the working classes satisfactory if they must continue
in that status of dependence which marks the mere
wage earner. Like the tenant farmers, the urban work­
ers must be aided by the state to become property
owners.
Such are the doctrines and proposals which Pope
Leo would have the state put into operation for the
benefit of the working classes. They do not constitute
a complete and formal programme of labor legislation,
for that was beyond the scope of the encyclical. In a
document of that kind the Pope could do no more than
lay down certain fundamental principles of state action,
and by applying these to some of the foremost needs of
labor indicate the broad outlines of a comprehensive
system of betterment. The details can easily be filled
in by the specialists of each country.
As a matter of fact, the concrete methods and re­
forms that are mentioned by Pope Leo are in the main
strikingly similar to the “platform of minimums” for­
mulated in 1912 by one of the committees of the Na­
tional Conference of Charities and Corrections (Pro­
ceedings, pp. 376-394). Under the head of wages,
hours, safety and health, housing, term of working
life, compensation or insurance, the committee endeav­
ored to define the minimum decent standards of life
and labor for the working people of America.
Naturally this programme covers the ground in
much greater detail than the encyclical, and it includes
certain important topics which Pope Leo does not
touch; for example, housing and insurance. But it
embodies no principle that is not found in Pope Leo’s
proposals; for example, the question of housing is implicity met by the Pope in his declarations on a living
wage, and the question of insurance by his demand
that the worker be enabled to become the owner of
property from which he can derive an income.
All things considered, we are justified in claiming,
that the principles and proposals set forth by Pope Leo

29

concerning the function of the state in relation to labor
constitute an adequate scheme of amelioration. Were
they but reduced to practice, the workers would not only
find their condition immensely improved but would be
able of themselves to obtain all the further advantages
that are feasible and just.

THE TWO SUPREME EVILS.
The two supreme evils of our industrial system are
the unreasonably small share of the national income
obtained by the majority of wage earners, and the
unreasonably large share that goes to a small minority
of capitalists. The remedies which Pope Leo offers
for the former evil are, as we have just said, sufficient.
The second evil he does not directly touch in the encycli­
cal. His subject was the “Condition of Labor,” not the
wider topic of social reform, or social justice. Never­
theless, he makes two or three references to the evil
of excessive gain that are not without significance
when taken in connection with the traditional teaching
of the Church.
He declares that the hard condition of the working
classes “has been increased by rapacious usury, which,
although more than once condemned by the church, is
nevertheless under a different guise but with the like
injustice still practiced by covetous and grasping men.”
Again, he enjoins the rich to “refrain from cutting down
the workmen’s earnings, whether by force, fraud or by
usurious dealing.”
There can be little doubt that the new form of usury
stigmatized in these sentences refers to the extortionate
prices exacted from the working classes for the neces­
saries of life by the monopolists. A certain great meat
packing industry last year obtained dividends of 35
per cent. During the same period this concern helped
to promote an artificial shortage of hides, with the re­
sult that the price of shoes was kept at a much higher
level than was required by the relation between supply
and demand. Were Pope Leo alive, he would probably
.30

‘

-

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·■·

'

have little hesitation in classifying this coarse injus­
tice as “usurious.”
THE CHURCH A FOE OF MONOPOLY.
For centuries the Catholic teaching on monopoly
aas been that a combination which artificially raises
the price of products above the market or competitive
level is guilty of unjust dealing, and that such practices
ought to be prevented by law. Taken in conjunction
with the general principle of state intervention enun­
ciated by Pope Leo, these doctrines constitute a sanc­
tion for the use of any legislative method that is nec­
essary to meet the evil of monopoly.
Let us recall Pope Leo’s general principle: “When­
ever the general interest or any particular class suffers,
or is threatened with mischief which can in no other
way be met or prevented, the public authority must
step in and deal with it.” Therefore, if that “usurious
dealing” which is practiced by monopolistic concerns
for the sake of extortionate profits can “in no other
way be met or prevented” than by the destruction oi
the monopoly, or by fixing maximum prices for its
products, or by state ownership of the industry, in
whole or in part, or by all these methods combined,
the state will have not only the right but the duty to
intervene in any or all of these ways.
Did space permit, it would be easy to show that all
the other social questions, such for example as those
of land tenure and taxation, and taxes on incomes and
inheritances, can be adequately solved in conformity
with the social ad moral teachings of the Catholic
Church. All the evils of our industrial system can be
abolished by sane and progressive measures of social
reform, against which the Church has not a word to say
There is no need to' resort to socialism, even if that
scheme would not leave the last state of society worse
than the first (Elsewhere I have tried to set forth
in detail a comprehensive programme of reforms, “Dis­
tributive Justice," The Macmillan Company.)

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