This summer, in an effort to consolidate properties, the Leo Brown Jesuit Community in St. Louis was suspended (closed). The large home on Russell Boulevard, south of the Saint Louis University campus, was named for Fr. Leo C. Brown, SJ, in the 1980s. But who was Fr. Leo Brown, and why was he honored by having a Jesuit community named after him?
Leo Brown was born April 28, 1900, in Stanberry, Missouri. He entered the Society of Jesus at the St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri, on September 26, 1921. He was ordained a priest on June 24, 1934. By the mid-1940s, he was recognized nationally as a “labor trouble shooter,” having helped to resolve more than 300 labor disputes over three years (Denver Register, Nov. 5, 1946). His intellect and mild-mannered approach earned the trust of labor leaders and business owners alike.
In 1940, equipped with a brand-new doctorate from Harvard University, Fr. Brown joined the economics department of Saint Louis University. Four years later, the university opened the Institute of Social Sciences with Fr. Brown as director. He continued to direct the institute when it was renamed the Cambridge Center for Social Sciences and moved to Cambridge, England, in 1966.
From 1942 until the time of his death in 1978, Fr. Brown served as mediator or arbitrator for more than 4,000 employment disputes. He is credited as being instrumental in ending the steel industry’s longest labor strike at the time – in 1946, at Granite City Steel in Granite City, Illinois – when he was named a special representative of the United States Secretary of Labor. In 1953, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Fr. Brown deserved the credit for ending a 13-week trucking strike by acting as an intermediary between the employers and the Teamsters Union. He also mediated a strike against the Monsanto Chemical Company in St. Louis.
His reputation was sealed – not just in the greater St. Louis area, but nationally. As a member of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atomic Energy Labor-Management Relations Panel, he mediated disputes related to atomic energy. In total, he was named to emergency boards by four different U.S. presidents to help adjudicate labor disputes that rose to a national level of disruption. He served as president of the National Academy of Arbitrators beginning in 1960.
According to his 1978 obituary in the Jesuit Bulletin, he was credited with ending some of the “most paralyzing strikes in post-war history.”
Father Brown’s counsel and expertise were welcomed in other economic areas beyond labor disputes. He served as chairman of minimum wage boards in both Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
He is also recognized for his contributions to Catholic social thought. He led Jesuit scholars across the United States to help lay a foundation for what is today recognized as Catholic social teaching. He served as president of the Catholic Economic Association (later renamed the Association for Social Economics).
His quiet wit and unassuming manner enabled him to win over people on opposing sides of debate. His love of sports even led the Baseball Owners Association to call on him when they were faced with collective bargaining for the first time.
At his death in 1978, he was remembered for his wisdom, humor and even temper, but most of all, he is remembered as a peacemaker.
Jesuits serve God in all kinds of ways. Learn more about our vocation at BeAJesuit.org.
