"Work of the Priest"
Father John M. Hayes (1906-2002) was the perfect choice to focus on the practical ways clerics could enact the Pope's exhortation to "Go to the workingman, go to the poor." He had, or would in soon order, publicly and visibly support the CIO's organizing efforts in the meat-packing and agricultural-implement plants. Hayes, moreover, had spoken to rallies of strikers and conducted labor schools for workers. A priest of the Chicago archdiocese, he was Father Raymond McGowan's top choice to fill the position when SAD expanded in 1940. Here he worked until hospitalized for tuberculosis in early 1944.