THE Global Justice Movement Website

THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.

Friday, May 16, 2014

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 20


Most of this week was spent “cleaning up” from prior meetings, or arranging or preparing for future meetings.  Nevertheless, we did commit a few newsworthy acts:

The Great Commoner, W. J. Bryan
• We located four “new” articles by Judge Peter S. Grosscup, who served as presiding justice of the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago from 1899 to 1911, when he retired from the bench.  The first was “Prosperity with Justice — Working Toward a Solution” from 1910.  The second was “The Judgment,” Grosscup’s analysis for “laymen” of the decision that broke up Standard Oil in 1911.  The third was “Can Republicans and Progressives Unite?” from 1914, and the fourth was “Our Old American Freedoms” from 1919.  An unexpected bonus was finding an article by William Jennings Bryan about the breakup of Standard Oil, and a short memorial by Elihu Root on the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt, soon after Roosevelt died.

J. D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil
• “Prosperity with Justice” was an analysis of the problem of restraining and regulating large businesses without either violating private property or justice, or imposing State control.  “The Judgment” explained how, in Grosscup’s opinion, the breakup of Standard Oil, while a much-desired end, violated principles of justice, particularly by using the courts to legislate.  It has an advanced understanding of the concept of social justice.  “Can Republicans and Progressives Unite?” is a remarkably harsh assessment of the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.  “Our Old American Freedoms” analyzes the social and legal changes that resulted from World War I.  One day we hope to compile Grosscup’s major articles in a single book.

• Amazon is still using CESJ Director of Research Michael D. Greaney’s book, So Much Generosity, a survey of the fiction of Cardinals Wiseman and Newman, and Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, as a “loss leader” at substantial savings: $3.45!!  That’s the price, not the savings.  It’s a $20 book.  The book is published by Universal Values Media, Inc., which has a co-marketing arrangement with CESJ.

• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 66 different countries and 55 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and India. The most popular postings this past week were “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “‘Inequality Is the Root of All Social Evil’,” “Aristotle on Private Property,” “Why Did Nixon take the Dollar off the Gold Standard?” and “Statism v. Catholic Social Teaching, II: Rerum Novarum.”

Those are the happenings for this week, at least that we know about.  If you have an accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we’ll see that it gets into the next “issue.”  If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them to us to post for you.  All comments are moderated anyway, so we’ll see it before it goes up.

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