There are many reasons
for studying history both personal and social.
For me it’s just fun, but more than that, it helps not to repeat the
same mistakes again and again. Also it’s
a good feeling to have the sense that history is progressive, and we are all
part of the story. Sometimes it seems as
Yogi Berra said, “It’s déjà vu all over again,” however the bigger story seems
to show progress. But is history by
necessity progressive? Dominican
Theologian Gustavo Gutierrrez warns,
To falsify the memory of an oppressed people
is to mutilate their ability to
rebel.
Thereby an effective weapon is acquired for their continued subjugation.
The manipulation of history has always been
a prime resource in the hands of
dominant groups for the maintenance of their
power. (Gutierrez, Gustavo,
Las Casas, Orbis Books, New York
1993. p. 415)
The story
of Sam Fielden has precisely this value; it is back to the roots of personal
and community identity. Sam Fielden and
his friends did the best they could do to achieve social justice; I would like
to say the same of myself and those I accompany on the journey.
ADVICE
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S FORMER PASTOR
Rev.
Jeremiah Wright from Chicago gave the keynote speech at a recent M.I.C.A.H. (Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied
for Hope) gathering in Milwaukee. Wright
noted that the Prophet Micah said that we are required “to work for justice”
(Micah, 6). Is that my personal
mandate? Rev. Wright trashed enlightened
individualism and noted that Descartes (1596-1650) was wrong in his effort to
establish personal existence by saying, “I think, therefore I am.” Jeremiah Wright rephrased the cogito and said, “I am because I know I
am part of a community.” Justice is a
community mandate.
A
CONTRADICTION?
Samuel Fielden (1847-1922), of a Protestant
background, worked for justice in the very cruel time of burgeoning
industrialism and nascent capitalism.
But Max Weber connected capitalism with the Protestant ethic. (The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Reprinted in 1992,
Routledge, London & New York)
Also capitalism and the Protestant reformation are
part of the ‘age of enlightenment.’ How
did Sam Fielden emerge as a labor activist? Weber conflated such diverse groups as
Calvinists, Pietists, Methodists, Lutherans, Unitarians and Quakers with a
smattering of Jesuits and Jews. It was
beginning sociology so his work was researched and claimed the credibility of a
scientific study. Of course there were
problems and negative criticisms.
Weber’s work was first published in German in 1904 -1905.
One of the
first sociologists, Weber in his research discovered that in a sense capitalism
had a long history, but modern capitalism is new. It is distinguished by, ‘the rationalization
of labor,’ (Marx called it turning labor into a commodity) the continual acquisition
of wealth for its own sake, and the constant quest for capital for renewal and
growth. Workers must follow God’s
calling and fulfill the required work
ethic of duty and honesty.
Labour
must… be performed as it were an absolute end in itself, a calling. But such an attitude is by no means a product
of nature. It cannot be evoked by low
wages or high ones alone, but can only be the product of a long and arduous
process of education. (ibid. p.61-62)
Concern for
families led to the condemnation of ‘liberalism’ or capitalism by Leo XIII in
his 1891 Encyclical Rerum Novarum, the first of modern encyclicals on
Catholic Social Teaching. The
questioning and challenge to capitalism and advocacy for workers’ rights continues
to this day by Pope Francis, but is the Pope now alone in his concern? (N.C.R.
June 7-20, 2013, p.1&7) The
Archdiocese of Milwaukee refuses to support the striking immigrant Palermo
Pizza workers in Milwaukee . Clergy
speaking for the workers have been Protestant.
SAMUEL
FIELDEN THE CAPITALIST
But what about Samuel Fielden? He grew up as a Methodist and was a Methodist
preacher as a young man. His family had
ties to the Quakers and Unitarians, yet Sam was a social activist fighting for
workers. Sam wrote in his autobiography
that he had his own business at the time of the Haymarket incident.
…I invested what money I had in a team of
horses, so that I became what
the Chicago Tribune calls a capitalist. I have earned my living by this
means, that is, hauling stone, from that
time to the time of my arrest.
(The
Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs, Phillip S. Foner, ed. Humanities
Press, New York, 1969, p. 154)
As a ‘capitalist’ Sam had as a role model, Todmorden
Mill founder Honest John Fielden who sided with the plug pullers protest. (blog posting, April 29, 2013)
THE
METHODIST PREACHER
As a
religious person, Samuel Fielden must have been influenced by the town of
Todmorden’s religious non conformism. Sam,
following his mother’s example, became a Methodist and a preacher both in
England and for a short time in the U.S.
Concern for the working class was a pillar of belief for John Wesley,
the founder of the Methodists. Slavery
was stopped in England by Parliament member William Wilberforce, a close friend
of John Wesley. Wesley supported and
advised Wilberforce in the successful abolition of the English slave trade in 1807
and slavery itself in the British Empire in 1833.
THE PHILOSOPHER
Sam Fielden
was a critical thinker. As a child he
quickly learned to read, but he had very little formal schooling. In his early years, he was privileged to
listen to his father and friends discuss politics. He knew about the struggle – the politics of
the Chartists for universal voting rights.
Sam attended lectures of the Free
Thinkers in Chicago. His break with
religion came in a discussion in Chicago with the Moody Bible Institute founder
Dwight Moody. Moody defended the
suppression of workers as biblical and moral.
COMPASSION
– HUMAN DECENCY
The young
Sam Fielden identified with those suffering, with child factory workers, the
slaves in the U.S., the freed slaves turned into wage slaves. He commented on migrant Irish workers:
I used to manage to get off from the mill
for a week in these hay fields with
the men who came from Ireland to earn, by
the hardest labor and the most
abstemious living, the money to pay for
their little holdings in their native
country and the thatch above the heads of
their wives and little ones. …These
men
are compelled to harvest crops in England for the privilege of living
in
their own country, … the money they earn
in the English harvest… the
English landlord compels them to give it up
again and his lordship brings
It back again to England. (Ibid. p.137)
A MAN OF CONSCIENCE BECAME “CONSCIENTIZADO”
Judging
from his autobiography Sam Fielden at an early age had an acute sense of right
and wrong. His Methodist mother and
critical thinking father were crucial in developing his social conscience. Travel and work experience and social action solidified
his world view and his role in it.
Gustavo Gutierrez explains Paulo Freire’s process of ‘conscientizacion’
and it is a fitting description of Samuel Fielden.
By means of an un-alienating and liberating “cultural
action,” which links
theory
with praxis, the oppressed person perceives-and modifies-his relationship
with the world and other people. He thus makes the transfer from a “naïve
awareness”- which does not deal with
problems, tends to accept mythical
explanations, and tends toward debate- to a
“critical awareness”- which
delves into problems, is open to new ideas,
replaces magical explanations
with real causes and tends to dialogue. (Gutierrez,
Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation, Orbis Books, NewYork, 1973, p.
91)
Samuel
Fielden was aware that the suffering of workers – the poor - is due to
changeable economic and political structures.
He did his part to effect change.
Pastor Jeremiah Wright said that it is a given for
preachers to preach justice. Sam Fielden
did just that not only from the pulpit but with his life. It is important to remember Sam and the
Haymarket martyrs as an inspiration and lesson for participating in the
progress of history.
