Peter’s Reply to Michael Gunn

[Taking exception to Peter’s answer to the Bellingham reader, Michael Gunn, organizer of the Catholic Labor Guild in Brooklyn, wrote a critical letter, which drew the following reply. (March, 1934.)]

Dear Mike:

In my answer to a reader
from Bellingham, Washington,
I said most organizations exist,
not for the benefit of the organized
but for the benefit of the organizers.
I added that when the organizers
try to organize the unorganized
they do not organize themselves.
When I wrote that
I did not have in mind
the Catholic Labor Guild in Brooklyn.
I had in mind
some selfish exploiters
of the exploitation of the exploited
who like to be called labor leaders.
I had in mind
some exalted rulers of secret societies
who, while they call themselves Masons,
have not yet learned
to create order out of chaos.
I had in mind
some dignified regulators
of societies which have some secrets
without being called secret societies.
While I don’t like some of your ideas,
I like you personally.
I think that you are much better
than some of your ideas.

I think that you are inclined
to lead a life of sacrifice.
During the World War you placed your life
at the service of the British Empire.
After the war, you placed your life
at the service of the Irish Republic.
And now you have placed your life
at the service of the Church.
You and your fellow workers
of the Catholic Labor Guild
are trying to combine
prayer, action, and sacrifice,
as the Holy Father suggests.
You and your fellow workers
want to be go-givers,
you don’t want to be go-getters.
Since you and your fellow workers
want to be go-givers,
you ought to give
to those who are in need of giving.
To give to people who have money to lend
is to give to people who are not in need.
People who have money
should do good with their money,
either give it away.
as our Saviour advises,
or lend it without interest.
To pay interest on money loaned
is to place an enterprise
under a too heavy burden.
Everyone must live on the sweat of his brow
and not on money loaned.
Nobody could lend money at interest
If nobody would borrow money at interest.
People who live on money loaned at interest
reap some of the profits of property
without the responsibility of property.
To pay double wages to managers
is to make the workers
envious of the managers.
Managers should receive what they need
and no more than they need.
Knowledge obliges as well as “noblesse
oblige.”
We cannot have a Catholic democracy
without a Catholic aristocracy.
Paying double wages to managers
is not the way to make aristocrats
out of efficient managers.
“The most important of all are Workmen’s
Associations
and it is greatly to be desired
that they should multiply
and become more effective,”
says Pope Leo XIII.
To borrow money at interest
and to pay double wages to managers
is not absolutely necessary
to the good functioning
of Workmen’s Associations.
You say that the Catholic Labor Guild
does not lend money at interest
I hope that it will see the way
not to borrow money at interest.
You say that the Catholic Labor Guild
stands for profit-sharing.
I hope that your self-sacrificing example
will lead the members of the Guild
to stand for loss-sharing.
When the members of the Guild
decide to allow the Guild
to accumulate the profits
they will not need to worry
about their economic security.
Let the members of the Guild
give all they can to the Guild;
the Guild will not leave them in want.
Let the Labor Guild help
all those it can help
and the Farming Communes will help
all those that the Guild cannot help.

Yours for Catholic Action.

PETER MAURIN