Correspondence
Correspondence The l i t e r a r y Melton Trappist, Ky. To the Editors: Although I am in basic agreement with William Shannon's assessment of Michael Mott's monumental biography, The Seven...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mi...
...p. 655, Bas., Tachydromos, Greece...
...But by "the final crunch," does Father Rice mean the expulsion of Stalinist unions from the CIO in 1949-50, before the McCarthy era...
...I Commonweal: 642...
...10, 1984...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-330...
...JOHN C. CORT Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...p. 661, Saio, Rothco...
...It is another thing altogether, however, to give even partial credence to falsehoods about ACTU people who, on balance, did a perfectly honest job of fighting for independent trade unions that would effectively represent American workers...
...12, 1983...
...He notes that his "archives" are open to any interested scholar who might want to present a more complete picture...
...Charles Owen Rice...
...I will concede that Schatz is an able historian and most of the time is fairy accurate, especially compared to Douglas Seaton, whose book about ACTU I reviewed in Commonweal a year earlier [Aug...
...Schatz's slurs against ACTU are smoother and more plausible than Seaton's but, given space enough, I think I could document their inaccuracy to the satisfaction of this journal's readers...
...BROTHER) PATRICK HART A c a s e for ACTU Nahant, Mass...
...It is significant that most of these early studies concentrate on Merton as a literary figure...
...The claim by several Stalinist unions that their civil rights were violated was rejected by a U.S...
...To the Editors: Certaintly no priest, during the thirties and forties, spent more time and energy working and fighting on behalf of both organized and unorganized labor than did Msgr...
...Copyright _9 1984 Commonweal Foundation...
...To the Editors: Although I am in basic agreement with William Shannon's assessment of Michael Mott's monumental biography, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, which appeared in the October 19th issue, I would like to point out a factual error in the opening paragraph of the review...
...True, all of us in ACTU supported that...
...p. 650, Emil Antonucci...
...48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster Ohio 44691...
...Father Rice concludes, "It is ironic that the Communists who lost on the field of battle bid fair to win the battle of the books...
...Both the New York and Boston public libraries have full sets of The Labor Leader and The Wage Earner (Detroit ACTU paper) on microfilm...
...The facts are there...
...That is simply not an accurate statement as far as the national ACTU is concerned or the two most active chapters (New York and Detroit...
...The Mott biography which deals directly with these latter works opens the door for further exploration in this area of Merton studies...
...Father Rice has every right to judge his own past activities as he chooses, including his activities in the struggle of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU) to build unions that would be free of Stalinist, as well as of either employer or racketeer, control...
...Unfortunately, Schatz joins with Seaton in pushing the same charge that ACTU's primary interest in the labor movement was removing Communist leadership...
...p. 652 $chwadron, Punch...
...As someone who helped edit ACTU's national publication, The Labor Leader, and was involved with that organization from the thirties through the fifties, I can share Father Rice's regret that we were not more Christian, rising more successfully above the "nastiness and bitterness" injected by the UE Stalinists in that strug: gle, as Father Rice puts it...
...Father Rice writes, "My deepest regret is that we did not defend [the Communists'] civil rights in the final crunch, let McCarthyites have their will of them...
...What needs to be done now is a comprehensive study of the entire Merton corpus, especially in reference to the experimental poetry and literary criticism of his last years...
...Perhaps some day the wind of intellectual fashion will veer sufficiently to move some yet unborn scholar to assemble them, and some yet unknown publisher to print them...
...The material is there...
...It was done not by McCarthyites but anti-McCarthyites like Philip Murray and Walter Reuther, two of the finest labor leaders America has yet produced...
...I could cite chapter and verse from The Labor Leader, until Commonweal's columns were filled and its readers anesthetized, all of my citations demonstrating a record of defense of the Communists' civil rights extending over nine years of the Cold War and McCarthyite hysteria...
...p. 651, Bdna, Rothco...
...According to an updated list provided by the Merton Studies Center of Bellarmine College, Louisville, Kentucky, of the ninety works listed, eleven were published prior to 1968, the year of Merton's death...
...Illustrations: p. 649, Mitro TaNea, Greece...
...I might add that so are mine, though no scholar or publisher, secular or Catholic, has shown much interest...
...What true Christian hsa not had such regrets...
...Even more significant, however, may be Schatz's inaccuracies about Communist trade-union practice, inaccuracies that bear directly on his regret at the downfall of the Stalinist UE and his animus against ACTU for its part in that downfall...
...District Court...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N,Y...
...Father Rice's review appears to second Sehatz's unfavorable treatment of ACTU...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...The earliest doctoral dissertation was defended by Sister Susan Campbell on "The Poetry of Thomas Merton: A Study in Theory, Influences, and Form" at Stanford University in 1954...
...This can safely be done since New Directions has published The Collected Poems and The Literary Essays during the past decade...
...It is stated there that "the first dissertation on Merton's writings appeared the year before his death...
...He was also active in the campaign to free the United Electrical Workers, CIO, from Communist domination, and it is this activity, or some aspect of it, that now causes him feelings of guilt and regret, expressed in his re-~ view of Ronald Schatz's The Electrical Workers [Aug...
Vol. 111 • November 1984 • No. 21
