St. Louis Cultural History Project—Spring 2021
Leo Brown, S.J. (1900-1972):
Head of the Institute of Social Order
By William Barnaby Faherty, S.J.
(Reprinted from William Barnaby Faherty, S.J. Men to Remember.*)
Leo C. Brown, S.J. (1900-1972) directed the Jesuit Institute of Social Order, located for a time at the Jesuit university in St. Louis, headed the Catholic Economic Association; gained the rank of full professor of economics at the university; was first choice of the Trustees of the Missouri Province for the presidency of the university at one time; was awarded honorary doctorates from several universities; and edited the economics and social studies area of the New Catholic Encyclopedia. But his main work in life was labor-management conciliation.
A man of intelligence, dignity, and good judgment, Father Brown was easy of approach, spoke with a deep, calm voice, and acted with reserve and control. He earned a masters degree in psychology from the Jesuit university in St. Louis, and a second masters and a doctorate in economics from Harvard. He was a mediator and conciliator rather than an executive.
As head of the Institute of Social Sciences at the Jesuit university in St. Louis between 1944 and 1952, he gave little evidence that he saw the potential ot this program. It brought many young Jesuit would-be social scientists to the university to study under a succession of distinguished professors on temporary leave from other universities, such as the political scientists Morehouse F. X. Millar from Fordham and George Dunne of California. He left decisions to others. He helped them to decide. In one class he conducted, he asked a Jesuit scholastic: “When are we having our exam?” The scholastic sounded out his fellow Jesuits and set the time.
Later, as head of the Institute of Social Order, Father Brown let those under him pursue their individual research. He organized no common projects, sought no unified goals.
Arbitration was Father Brown's metier, and here he excelled. From 1942 to the time of his death in 1978, he served as mediator or arbitrator in more than 4,000 labor-management disputes, and he was credited with settling some of the most paralyzing strikes in post-World War II history.
Once asked how he happened to become a labor mediator, Father Brown, the son of a railroad man in Council Bluffs, Iowa, replied, “Before I entered the seminary, I was a member of a union and active in adjusting disputes between the employees and management. Even then, although a labor representative, I tried to understand what caused disputes to arise and what were the real obstacles to mutually satisfactory settlements.”
It was no surprise, then, that when he undertook theological studies he joined with other young Jesuits interested in social questions, such as Bernard Dempsey, to study the social justice views of early Jesuit scholars. Pope Pius XI had shortly before that issued his great social encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, on Reconstructing the Social Order. Later Leo Brown and Bernard Dempsey, along with Thomas Divine and others, formed the Catholic Economics Association.
After ordination, Fathers Brown and Dempsey undertook graduate studies in economics at Harvard, where they studied under top-flight professors.
Since his field was to be industrial relations, Leo's director was Sumner Slichter. Slichter presumed a priest would be more interested in “do-goodism” than in learning the intricacies of industrial relations. He soon found out that a Jesuit who had been athletic director at the Jesuit high school in St. Louis and disciplinarian at Campion Jesuit High School had gone beyond the “do- gooder” stage.
Professor Slichter knew all of the labor leaders of the region and invited them to informal sessions with the students. Leo met many of them. Eventually he did his dissertation on unions in the leather industry. This gave him an insight into the workings of labor unions.
Father Brown joined the Department of Economics at the Jesuit university in St. Louis in 1942. He continued on the faculty until 1965. Dr. Gladys W. Gruenberg became his graduate assistant when she undertook her doctoral program in industrial relations. When she finished her degree, she joined Leo in teaching a course in arbitration. Still later, she wrote his life story. (Labor Peacemaker: The Life and Works of Father Leo C. Brown, S.J., St. Louis, 1981.)
She recalls him saying: “During World War II, I was invited to become a member of the War Labor Board. There I became acquainted with labor and management officials who, after the war, began to invite me to arbitrate and mediate their labor disputes. I had some luck with my first efforts and further invitations followed.” Even in such an interview, the deep-voiced Father Brown displayed his serious approach to issues.
In 1946, Father Brown settled a 150-day strike at Granite City Steel Company and mediated a 90-day walkout at Monsanto Chemical. During the Korean conflict, he represented the public as a member of the National Wage Stabilization Board. In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed him a member of the Atomic Energy Labor Management Relations Panel. He later became its chairman. In 1962, he went to Hawaii to mediate a threatened strike in the sugar industry that dominated the area's economy. He kept both sides negotiating all day and all night on Easter Sunday in hammering out a settlement.
A framed document on his office wall contained one of his favorite quotations from the Old Testament, “You must not be guilty of unjust verdicts. You must neither be partial to the little man nor overawed by the great.”