This is what happens when you open a can of worms. We have been working for several years on a series of books tracing the origin of socialism, modernism, and the New Age, the reactions to these res novae or “New Things,” and explaining why our “Just Third Way of Economic Personalism” is the best response and counter to these anti-human “New Things.”
Peter S. Grosscup (AI enhanced)
During one of our research stints, we put a question to AI: “Is there any connection between Judge Peter S. Grosscup, President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Archbishop John Ireland and Father John A. Zahm, C.S.C.?” The answer came back, “Yes, these four men are connected through a progressive American network linking elite reform politics, the Theodore Roosevelt Administration, and a prominent faction of liberal American Catholic leaders during the early 20th century.”
It then followed with a bit of information, most of which we already knew, and pretty sketchy and in some places wrong, but it did give us the idea for today’s blog posting. It turns out that, yes, the four individuals worked in the same circle, and most of them knew each other with one — to us — rather unusual omission. For some reason, it does not appear that Father John A. Zahm and Judge Peter S. Grosscup knew each other, although they almost certainly knew of each other.
Archbishop John Ireland
Why do we think this is unusual? For one thing, Grosscup was judge of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago when Father Zahm was (at times) at the University of Notre Dame just down the road in South Bend. Both were good friends of Theodore Roosevelt, and both knew and worked with Archbishop John Ireland of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Fr. Zahm traveled with Roosevelt, while Abp. Ireland intervened with the Vatican when Fr. Zahm’s acceptance of some aspects of the theory of evolution cast doubts on his religious orthodoxy.
Of course, it might be explained by the fact Grosscup was very closely focused on a key aspect of Catholic social teaching which Fr. Zahm seems to have ignored, even as he personally met with Pope Leo XIII regarding Rerum Novarum: the importance of private property in Catholic social thought. In his 1895 article, “Leo XIII and the Social Question” (The North American Review, August 1895, Vol. 161, No. 465, pp. 200-214), there is a single mention of property, and that vague and, frankly confusing, not to say baffling. On page 210 he wrote in his analysis of Rerum Novarum,
Absolute and pagan theories regarding property, exaltation of liberty, which, while it is the honor of the human mind in the domain of politics, is folly in the domain of economic science, substitution of an artificial mechanism for the normal organism, rupture with industrial organizations and the atomization of society — in a word, all the miseries of our modern world have proceeded from these sources.
Father John A. Zahm
Even after making allowances for a different style of popular writing, Fr. Zahm seemed to say that “all the miseries of our modern world” result from 1) “Absolute and pagan theories regarding property,” and 2) “exaltation of liberty.” Most people who read this without reading Rerum Novarum — and quite a few who have — would, taking Fr. Zahm as their authority, conclude the right to be an owner is not absolute or inherent in each human person, and the free market is an abomination. That many have done exactly that is not surprising.
It becomes easier to understand how Fr. Zahm could have run afoul of the Vatican and the highly nuanced teaching on evolution if he managed to miss the main point of Rerum Novarum. That is the importance of an absolute right to be an owner as the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching and the necessity of freedom of association — liberty — in the market as well as in relations between employers and employees.
Daniel Webster
Property is mentioned explicitly twenty times in Rerum Novarum, and implicitly more times. Liberty and freedom of association are mentioned explicitly thirty-three times and, again, implied more times. This is because the whole point of Catholic social teaching is that the meaning and purpose of life is to become more fully human — that is, to become virtuous — and to become virtuous ordinarily requires two things: the power to act, and the freedom to act.
In no other way can a human person build habits of doing good, that is, become virtuous. “Power,” as Daniel Webster said, “naturally and necessarily follows property.” Without power, defined as “the ability for doing,” it is impossible to “do” . . . and therefore impossible to become virtuous.
If we read Rerum Novarum objectively and without preconceptions, we see that, far from being the cause of the world’s problems, private property and liberty (freedom of association) are essential to solving them in a just and sustainable manner:
Pope Leo XIII
· We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners. (§ 46)
· Private societies, then, although they exist within the body politic, and are severally part of the commonwealth, cannot nevertheless be absolutely, and as such, prohibited by public authority. For, to enter into a “society” of this kind is the natural right of man; and the State has for its office to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and, if it forbid its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence, for both they and it exist in virtue of the like principle, namely, the natural tendency of man to dwell in society. (§ 51)
Does this mean that someone can own as much of anything he wants and do anything with it? Or that people can form associations for any purpose under the sun? Certainly not — and Leo XIII made this clear:
· “[N]o one is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for his own needs and those of his household; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becomingly his condition in life, ‘for no one ought to live other than becomingly.’ But, when what necessity demands has been supplied, and one's standing fairly taken thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains over.” (§ 22)
· “There are occasions, doubtless, when it is fitting that the law should intervene to prevent certain associations, as when men join together for purposes which are evidently bad, unlawful, or dangerous to the State. In such cases, public authority may justly forbid the formation of such associations, and may dissolve them if they already exist. But every precaution should be taken not to violate the rights of individuals and not to impose unreasonable regulations under pretense of public benefit.” (§ 52)
And the bottom line? As Leo XIII declared in § 47,
Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided. . . . If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another. A further consequence will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the community is self evident. And a third advantage would spring from this: men would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life.
In the next posting on this subject, we will take a look at some of Grosscup’s views on the importance of private property and expanded capital ownership . . . and why, good as they were, they were impracticable.
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