FR. Kolaszewski’s Letter To His Bishop

(BACKGROUND OF THE POLISH COMMUNITY OF CLEVELAND)

by Father Nelson Callahan

Let me say at the beginning of this paper that I wish to speak about the backgroud of the Polish community in Cleveland specifically, since I know Cleveland’s ethnic history in a way which is far more precise than any knowledge I have of any other American city.

In 1876, the year of the first centennial of the founding of our republic, there were about five hundred families of Polish descent living in the Cleveland area. They had settled in three locations. The first was in Berea where immigrant men without particular skills were attracted by the opportunities for work in the quarries mining the sandstone we see so frequently in Cleveland’s buildings erected in the last third of the nineteenth century.

The second area of settlement for the Poles was in the Ansel Road neighborhood (west of Liberty Blvd. between Superior and St. Clair), a place which was in 1876 farmland out in the country.

The third area of settlement was the neighborhood with which this paper will be chiefly concerned, Newburgh. In 1876, it too, was mostly open country, bounded by Broadway on the north, the Cuyahoga River Valley on the south, East 55th Street on the west and East 116th Street on the east. Until 1872 Newburgh had been a city of its own, separate from Cleveland, and at one time, at the beginning of the last century, a larger city than Cleveland. Early settlers had been drawn there to escape the swamp fever that so terribly struck those people who chose to live in the flat lands at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.

By 1876, Newburgh was the site of Cleveland’s first great steel mill, the Newburgh Rolling Mill. Today it is a part of United States Steel and has been moved to the bank of the Cuyahoga River, at East 34th Street. (But the foundations of the old mill can still be found along the tracks of the Newburgh and South Shore Railroad.) The Mill was owned by a wealthy Cleveland citizen, Amasa Stone. The labor force was, at least in the unskilled jobs, almost all of Irish descent. It numbered about 1700 men who worked fourteen hours a day, six days a week for a pay of $11.75 a week. In 1877 the first major steel strike in the United States took place in Homestead, Pennsylvania. It was broken up by hired Pinkerton agents under the direction of Henry Clay Frick and achieved nothing for the strikers. The Irish at the Newburgh Rolling Mill decided that they, too, should have a strike which took place in 1880. They informed management that they would cease work on a specific day in that year and that they were seeking a $.25 cent a week raise. Management, however, was one person, Amasa Stone, and he felt affronted by the whole thing and surely would ignore such intimidation. Instead of negotiating with the would-be strikers, he simply declared the Mill closed and said it would stay closed while he took a trip around the world in his private yacht. He further told the would-be strikers that if they wished to seek reemployment at the Mill at the end of that year they might do so, but they would be rehired at $11.25 a week to compensate him for the trouble they had caused by forcing him to close the Mill for so long a time.

So the Mill did close and Amasa Stone did go around the world that year and in fact, very few of the Newburgh Irish were ever rehired at the Mill when it reopened. The men simply sought, and generally found, other employment, mostly with the developing Fire and Police forces of the City of Cleveland.

But Amasa Stone anticipated this and while abroad he stopped at Danzig, then a Polish seaport on the Baltic Sea, and there he advertised extensively for Polish labor to man his Mill. His offer was quite seductive to the Polish peasants from Silesia and Galatia: free passage (in cattleboats hired by Amasa Stone for the journey), to New York and to Cleveland where all who accepted the offer had guaranteed jobs in the Newburgh Rolling Mill at $7.25 per week. This was an offer that many younger men could not resist in Poland and they began to come to Cleveland by the thousands. They settled in Newburgh (where Amasa Stone also owned large tracts of undeveloped land) and began to work in the Mill which actually reopened in 1882.

Of course the Newburgh Irish were not very happy about this turn of events and they resented the presence of the newly arrived Polish people in their midst, but from Amasa Stone’s point of view, this was a far more benevolent way of breaking a strike than the way Mr. Frick had handled his strike. Moreover, Mr. Stone could truly say this was not strike breaking; he simply had closed the Mill. There really was no strike at all; there was no picketing, nothing. Locally the breach of trust between capital and labor was to begin here. Labor had many lessons to learn about bargaining.

With his newly acquired cheap labor, Amasa Stone was able to underbid, and eventually wipe out, all other steel mills in the area. His was an empire built with the sweat of newly emigrated Polish labor.

This, then, is the background to the massive influx of the Polish people to Newburgh. But what, one is forced to inquire, were these people like? Most importantly they were poor, hard working, illiterate and Roman Catholic. A Catholic Mission for the Poles in the area had been established as early as 1872 but it never really grew until Amasa Stone’s labor force arrived in 1882. In 1883, the man who would organize the Catholics in this community and who would influence their whole future to the present day was ordained at the Cleveland Seminary by Cleveland’s second Bishop, Richard Gilmour. This man’s name was Anton Kolaszewski. He was immediately sent to the Newburgh area to be pastor to the Polish people there. His success at St. Stanislaus Parish (for so had the Polish parish been named) was phenomenal. It is best traced in a letter he wrote to Bishop Gilmour in November 1890 wherein he describes his work, not to boast, but peculiarly enough, to avoid taking an examination the Bishop ordered for all the younger clergy of the Diocese. This letter is to be found in the Archives of the Cleveland Diocese, a truly remarkable document, and I will now share it with you, adding some of my own comments, which will, I hope, put a clear focus on the work of Fr. Kolaszewski.

The letter is dated November 5, 1890 and is postmarked St. Stanislaus, Ohio. This latter fact says a great deal, I suspect, about Father Kolaszewski’s identity with his people and with his parish. I now quote:

Rt. Rev. and Dear Bishop;

How is it possible that you have put my name again on the list for examinations? I cannot understand this. Tell me dear Bishop, what do you want from me? Do I not work hard enough? Do I not study enough? I mean really practical study. Let us consider my case for a few moments. Please have the kindness to read these few lines.

1) Am I spending my time in idleness? Have I nothing to do that you intend to make for me something to do? I am right now doing the work of four priests, not one. You live down there at the Cathedral whre they have four priests. I have many more people to take care of than has the pastor of the Cathedral and I am for the greater part, alone. And I have a far more difficult class of people to deal with than does the pastor of the Cathedral.

2) Has the pastor of the Cathedral with his three assistants or any other priest in this Diocese done what I have done in such a short time? No. I found nothing when I came out to this parish but fields. Now I have built two most beautiful churches, one which is the grandest and most beautiful in the Diocese.

Here I would remark that if you would visit St. Stanislaus Church at East 65th and Forman Avenue you will find that Father Kolaszewski is not exaggerating. The second church about which he is speaking was (and is) the largest Gothic church ever built by Catholics in Ohio and indeed, was second in size only to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York among the Gothic churches built by Catholics in America. It was begun in 1886 and was in 1890 as this letter was being written, on the verge of completion. It is an extraordinary phenomenon, truly a symbol of a people who paid for it from money earned at the Newburgh Rolling Mills which, as we recall, was $7.25 per week. One is prompted to wonder what vision Fr. Kolaszewski was able to communicate to his people to cause them to finance such an immense undertaking. The fact is that it was built. Father Kolaszewski continues:

I have also procured property, I have built schools and a house for myself, all of this with the poorest class of people in the City, all newly immigrated to this country. What more do you want from me?

3) At present I am finishing this great, grand, glorious church which takes all my attention and all my time. There are now working here painters, plasterers, stucco plasterers, fresco painters, oil painters, glass makers, carpenters, marble workers, altar builders and I personally oversee all the work. What more do you want from me? Am I idle?

4) At present am I to let everything as it were, go as it pleases and sit down to study a few definitions by heart?

5) I have already put $80,000 of the poor peoples’ hard earned money and of my own money, $12,000 into this church. Shall I let all this money, all the work and all the labor and time go as it pleases, to the Devil, I might almost say, and shut myself up in my room and study a few definitions by heart? Where is prudence? Where is common sense?

Here I would interpose again to ask you to recall that an 1890 dollar was worth ten 1972 dollars and with this in mind, one is staggered at the depth of personal sacrifice for all, priest and people, this church required. And again one marvels at the drive that put up this church which still, today, towers over the neighborhood that built it. The letter goes on:

6) At present I need only a few thousand dollars more yet to complete this grand, glorious, beautiful temple. The good people give, that is true, most willingly, but I must call on them in their houses. I have to collect from house to house. Saturday was pay day at the Mill. This morning (Monday), I started a new house collection. We need the money to pay the workers and the collection will take over a month, every day from dawn to dark. Shall I give up the collection, sit down locked in my room to study a few definitions?

7) You, Rev. Bishop, published a few weeks ago in the Catholic newspaper, the Universe that there was going to be a special collection for the orphans. You need money for the orphans. With my house collection for the church, I will also collect for the orphans; so I have done every year. Do you want me to give up the orphan’s collection to study a few definitions by heart?

8) Dear Bishop, I study more than any of your priests. I study practically and not theoretically.

9) Dear Bishop, I have proved the fruit of my study and my ability everywhere. Be it at the altar, I know my rubrics in the Mass and I am, thanks to God a fair singer. Be it in the pulpit, I am, thanks to God, a good speaker and preacher. I know my theology and I write out all my sermons. Be it in building, I have great experience in that work and in architecture, I know that very well. I am well posted infinances and money affairs, especially in money collecting. Be it in ruling my congregation and in schools, I am well educated in that. Be it in dealing with my people, I am well founded in that. Be it in economics, I think no priest in the Diocese can beat me in economics and orderliness. What more do you want from me? To learn a few definitions by heart?

10) Dear Bishop, no priest in this Diocese has done in such a short time as much as I have done and am doing now.

I interupt the letter here to ask you to note the priorities which Fr. Kolaszewski is about to enumerate. They are most revealing of the man and of the role in which he cast himself. His main concern is for the poor, but like all pastors of newly arrived immigrants, he considers his own people to be the poorest people in the Diocese and so his poor Poles are his first concern. But he is also concerned and far more importantly, he asks his very poor people to be concerned, as he is, for the needy of the whole Diocese. He wishes to belong to the whole Diocesan Community but in order to do so, he wishes his people to begin the development of stability and he will turn to education as a way out of the ghetto for his people. So enumerating his priorities he continues:

I work for the good of the poor, for the good of the Church, for the good of Religion, for the good of the Diocese and for the good of my people. I have heard seventy thousand confessions since I was ordained seven years ago. I support at the present time, five students for the priesthood in the Seminary so that we may have Polish priests in America and not wanderers from Europe. I have already sent twenty-three Polish girls to the Convent so that we might have Polish sisters for our schools. These girls are poor, all of them, so I must dress them from top to foot and pay their traveling expenses to the Motherhouse in Indiana so we may have sisters here. But we are not concerned for our parish only. When you, Rt. Rev. Bishop had a fair for the new hospital on the West Side where our people never go, this parish did more for that hospital than any other parish in the City. Ask the Sisters and they will tell you what we have done and are doing every year since that hospital began. Also we have supplied three other Catholic institutions every winter with winter supplies, these are St. Alexis Hospital, The Poor Clare Convent and The Little Sisters of the Poor. Again, ask the Sisters if any other parish has done and is doing what we do, and if you do not put me down with this new burden, I will help you enlarge the Seminary. What more do you want from me?

11) All my time is occupied in my duties toward the good people of this parish. You know well that the people here have the greatest difficulty when they come to America.

Here, Fr. Kolaszewski begins a rather vivid description of the role of an ethnic pastor who is far more than a spiritual leader for his struggling newly arrived parishioners. He is also their temporal leader, a role few priests occupy today. Hear him describe this role as he goes on:

They do not speak or write the English language. So with everything, the first thing they do is come to me to seek my advice. If a man has no work, he comes to me and I write him a letter to the boss at the Mill to get him a job. I write thousands of such letters every year. If they want to buy a lot, they come to me and I make the bargain and I make out the papers and explain them for the people. If one intends to build a house, he comes to me and I make a plan for him for his house and make a contract with the carpenter to build the house. I can look out my window and see thousands of houses I have designed. If a man has a lawsuit, he comes to me for instruction. If husbands and wives argue, they come to me in order that justice and peace might be preserved. If children disobey or parents are cruel, the issue comes to me and I resolve it. With everything they come to me. What more do you want me to do?

I would ask here, is this not a great man who is fully conscious of his role in an immigrant community? Others will come later, but in 1890, Anton Kolaszewski is the main person with the Polish people in Newburgh. He knows this and more, he wants his Bishop to know it and to support him. As he says:

I am their advisor, their contractor, their friend, their brother and very often their judge. With everything they come to me. So you see how my time is occupied. I rise at five o’clock in the morning and go to bed at eleven at night and many times at twelve. I work eighteen hours a day, day after day; I never take a vacation. I am never at rest. I also take many sick calls in the night when I should have five or six hours of sleep. What else do you want from me? Do I not work enough; should I go to my room and study a few definitions by heart?

12) Last year I was sick and the doctor told me I must not work so hard or I will die from a stroke. Do you intend to give me the stroke that will put me down for the last time?And now Father Kolaszewski says something about his own maturity and what he considers to be the foolishness of the Junior Clergy Exam. He also says something about his own image of his maturity which is, of course, right, as the following point says so well in this way:

13) Dear Bishop, you count me among the Junior Clergy. I think I have put my children’s shoes and my boy’s pantaloons aside long ago. I am today a man of more than forty years and I wish to be treated as a man.

14) Dear Bishop, you say you want learned priests. But who is it that fights with you? With whom do you have all your trouble? Is it with your humble, hard working, self-sacrificing priests, or with your so-called learned priests? You may answer this question yourself.

15) Dear Bishop, I know just as much as your so-called learned priests. I know more than they, because besides all my other knowledge, I know how to respect authority. I know how to love and honor my Bishop. I also know how to obey my Bishop. What more do you want from me?

Here I might note, is a very significant point, one which marked nearly all the ethnic groups in the United States, especially during their first years in this country, a respect for law and order of every kind. It is well to recall that St. Stanislaus Parish produced the highest number of volunteers into the Armed Forces, (and the highest number of men who died), of any parish in the Diocese of Cleveland in the First World War. It may be surmised that Father Kolaszewski did not require any more of his Bishop in regards to respect for law and order, than he taught his people to require of him. Even to this day, law and order are part and parcel of the community that continues to worship at St. Stanislaus Church. The priest continues with a general summing up of his position:

16) When I was in the Seminary it was my duty to study theoretically and this I did. I stand on my record there since it is not a bad record. But now, as Pastor of this, the largest congregation in your Diocese, it is my duty to study the practical and apply in practice what I learned in the Seminary and here stands my record of seven years and four months as a most successful man in all that I have undertaken in this congregation. The societies, the schools, everything is flourishing. What more do you want from me?

Finally, Fr. Kolaszewski swears loyalty to his Bishop for life as it were, to clinch his argument and at the same time, to dispell any ideas the Bishop may have that he is disorderly or unresponsive to authority. He simply stays with his main theme that, since he is alone, he is simply too busy with the work of his parish to stop his work to prepare for Junior Clergy Exams. He says:

17) I have, Dear Bishop fulfilled all my duties conscientiously and will continue to so fulfill them as long as I live. All my life I have worked very hard. I worked very hard as a boy in Poland and in America. I have worked very hard as a priest since I was ordained and will so continue to work hard until the day I die for the good of the poor, for the good of the congregation, for the good of religion and for the good of the Diocese, for the salvation of souls, and I will even help you build a new Seminary yet if you do not put me down and kill me before my time. In the name of God, in the name of justice do not put this new burden on me. I have enough to do.

18) Please excuse the fact that this is such a long letter or the handwriting is poor, but I have written it by coal oil lamp and am tired after a whole day’s collection and cannot write any more.

I am in Christ,

Anton Kolaszewski

Is this not a letter of a great man? It is typical of countless ethnic pastors across the country. They preserved and passed on the faith of their people and kept these people together, even to this day.

* A paper presented at The National Conference on Ethnicity at The Cleveland State University on May 12, 1972.