The Worker Speaks His Mind

The Rev. Theodore V. Purcell '33, Assistant Professor of Industrial Psychology at Loyola University, who became a member of the Jesuit Order in 1936 and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1945, has recently published a book which has caused a stir of comment in magazines and the press. Entitled The Worker Speaks HisMind on Company and Union, the book, published by Harvard University Press, gives the opinions of laborers in a large company concerning their relations to management and unions. Father Purcell's conclusions are that the laborer wants and must have a healthy attitude of allegiance toward both his company and his union, for industrial harmony.

In order to get his material, Father Purcell lived for a year and a half in Packingtown, populated by the hundreds of people employed by the Chicago meatpackers, Swift and Company. In his dual capacity as priest and psychologist he had a neutral position between company and union and was freely confided in by the workers.

Following his graduation from Dartmouth, Father Purcell worked as a salesman with the Edison Co. in Chicago until 1936, when he became a Jesuit. He received the M.A. degree from Loyola University in 1945, and from Harvard, the M.A. degree in 1949, the Ph.D. in 1952. He joined the Loyola faculty in 1952.

Father Theodore Purcell '33 converses with a packinghouse steamfitter in Chicago