The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-08-05
Catholic Thought Aud Opinion
By REV. JOSEPH F. DONNELLY

cies and practices of the union must respect the spiritual and political liberties of It's members. and these principles, policies and practices must be Christian and soundly American, With these conditions ob- served and respected, the cause of labor is just cause. It is 8 noble cause. It is Gods cause.
 COMMUNISM AND THE CTO
 It Is certainly unfortunate that the Congress of Industrial Organi- zations should be SO vulnerable to the charge of harboring communists and allowing them so many posi- tions of importance. But back in 1896 and 1887 Communist poured into the CIO. Today under the lead- erslip of Phillip Murray, the CIO organizations are beginning to opurge their unions, and SO great Is the struggle, that the CommOnweal two weeks ago feared that the purge might split the CIO and fragment even more the American labor movement" But the step must be taken to save the Unions for the genuine Americans who serve both the welfare of their country and the welfare of the labor movement
 The American Association of Hos- iery Workers, CTO affiliate, has recently barred Nazis and Com munists from holding office in the union. That certainly is a practice to be approved and recommended. Men and women of this stripe have no place in the American labor movement. They are termites who build only to destroy. Enemies of democracy, they have not the cause of labor at heart and they must be driven out of the labor movement.
 CATHOLICS IN THE CHO
 Despite its defects we must always remember that because of the CTO there are thousands of industrial workers now organized for the first time. These men are receiving union protection which they never re- ceived from the craft unions in the days before the CIO. Without the CIO thousands of these unskilled workers would still be at the mercy of heartless ipdustrialistS, victims of the yellow dog contract, men whose labor would be bought and sold as commodity. Truly there are grounds for the charge of commun- ism in the CIO, but on the other hand a large majority of the offic- CTS of the various unions are Cath olics. To us it seems to be a mat ter of common sense for Catholics to get into the CIO and to try to influence this movement according to the sound principles of Catholic sociology.
 The Catholic Church approves the fundamental principles of the two great labor movements in America. The Catholic opposes, as every American must oppose, the efforts that have been made to sabotage the American labor movement.
 The efforts to organize the brass workers in Waterbury is commend able. They should be organized. And organized, they should take an &C., tive interest in the affairs of their union. In as much as perhaps eighty-five percent of these workers are Catholics they must strive to exert Christian influence upon their union. It must be soundly Christian. It must be soundly Amer ican. It must be a responsible or- ganization. It must fight fairly for its rights. It must accept the duties which must be assumed It must be just in its demands. Being these, 1t would be an organization which could be enthusiastically endorsed, an organization which could protect and safeguard the rights of its members.
 LABOR'S PROTECTOR
 The cause of labor has a Divine Patron. Christ the carpenter lived life of labor. The first time that the sacred hand touched the rough handle of a homemade hammer, labor received a new dignity and the workman was elevated to place in society that he never knew before and that he can never again be denied. He knew that there would come a day when relatively few men, goaded on by greed and lust for power, should so wrest the scales of Justice for the hands of God Himself as to leave millions of their fellow beings in poverty, suffering and destitution. To encourage men against that day, He came among