Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/61

CHAPTER 4. SOCIAL WORK 48 responsibility and of putting up a good fight against exploiters. One man gave a sob story. I told him that if what he said was true to see me after the meeting and I would look into his record and go to bat for him. "But on the other hand you may be the biggest liar on the whole south side." Everyone laughed for they knew his number. I left with a vote of thanks.

Of course an anarchist had no business working for a government, even a county government. I admitted this to all and sundry and I suppose compensated in my mind for this dereliction by speaking in hundreds of Protestant churches on Christian anarchism. I also organized a union. We had an increase in pay, extra vacation for overtime, and a five day week. I spent Saturday selling The CATHOLIC WORKER and the CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR in front of the library, putting even the Jehovah's Witnesses to shame by my fidelity to my post. One of my straw bosses was a Catholic who was sympathetic to the CW. I announced a meeting at his home one evening when I would speak about Catholic Conscientious Objectors in World War I. Only a few attended but I was pleased to meet Nina Polcyn and Dave Host, early friends of The Catholic Workers. I told at that meeting of my friend Ben Salmon, a Catholic, Single Taxer, vegetarian who had done time in Leavenworth and who still in jail, after the war was over, had gone on a hunger strike for over three months and thus obtained the release of the remaining 45 CO's in Ft. Riley. (He had begun the hunger strike at Ft. Riley and continued it at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.) Selma and I had visited Ben in Washington, D.C. where he was rooming with the guard who had forcibly fed him at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, and whom he had converted to pacifism. I told of John Dunn and of Francis Xavier Hennessey, a member of the Knights of Columbus, from Boston who was a CO in Leavenworth and whom Selma and I had visited on our hiking trip.

We had several meetings and it was not long until a CW House of Hospitality was started in Milwaukee. Carmen and Sharon sang Christmas carols Christmas afternoon of 1937 while Leonard Doyle played the piano. Muriel Lester of England, gave the House her blessing a few weeks before when she was speaking in Milwaukee. Nov. 11, 1937 was the 50th Anniversary of the hanging of the Haymarket Martyrs. I was able to get Lucy Parsons, the wife of Albert Parsons, one of the martyrs, to speak on Nov. 19th at a Memorial meeting. Fred Basset Blair, Communist leader, also spoke. I told him if he praised Russia I would tell on him, so he kept to the subject. Martin Cyborowski of the CIO also spoke, as did Prof. Philip Persons of the University of Wisconsin Extension. I was Chairman. Sponsors of the meeting, which was well attended, included my good friend Henry L. Nunn of Nunn Busch Shoe Co. a Tolstoian and advocate of 52 pay days a year for his workers, even in the depression. He was much more radical than his employees; a fine man, strict vegetarian and a Christian outside of any church. One of his prized possessions is a picture of Tolstoy carved on a piece of bark by Tolstoy himself and given to a visitor, who upon his death gave it to Mr. Nunn. Socialist and union leaders of Milwaukee and several pacifists