Gonner, Nicholas E.,Jr. b. July 8, 1870; Cape Girardeau, Missouri d. December 2, 1922; Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The son of a prominent midwestern Luxembourg American newspaper editor and publisher, Nicholas E. Gonner (1835— 1892), Nicholas Jr. was himself a leader of the Catholic press, national leader of German-speaking American Catholics, and pioneer in applying Catholic social thought.
Gonner took over the Luxemburger Gazette on the death of his father in 1892, editing it and another German- language Catholic weekly until 1918 through the Catholic Publishing Company (CPC) of Dubuque, Iowa. The CPC also published the Catholic Tribune and the Daily Tribune, the latter the only Catholic daily ever published in the United States. For his work in the Catholic press, Gonner was made a Knight of St. Gregory by Pope Pius X. Gonner was also a prominent national leader of mutual aid societies, serving as president of the German Catholic Central- Verein (1899—1903) and as an officer of the American Federation of Catholic Societies.Gonner’s parents emigrated from Luxembourg in 1866, settling in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where his father, an exLuxembourg military officer, entered the construction business with his brothers-in- law. Relocating to Dubuque, Iowa, Gonner Sr. assumed ownership of the financially troubled CPC in 1872, and due to his efforts the Luxemburger Gazette and Die Iowa became regionally important German- language weeklies and the CPC a thriving multigenerational family enterprise. Educated at St. Mary’s school in Dubuque and at Luxembourg City College, where he probably became interested in social reform, Nicholas Jr. returned to the United States to become editor and publisher of CPC newspapers in 1892.
Nicholas Jr. renamed Die Iowa the Katholischer Westen (The Catholic West) and edited and published it and the Luxemburger Gazette from 1892 until 1918. His hard-hitting editorials, often critical of President Woodrow Wilson for his stance toward World War I, raised doubts about the genuineness of U.S.
neutrality. Cumbersome U.S. government censorship requirements for German-language publications caused him to discontinue both German papers. He also edited and published a third newspaper, the Catholic Tribune, in weekly (1899—1915), semiweekly (1915-1919), and triweekly (1919-1920) editions, which eventually became the Daily American Tribune (1920-1922), all of which were printed in English.An ardent supporter of Catholic education and personal devotion to the eucharist, Nicholas Jr. saw the newspaper enterprise as more than a business; he saw it as an apostolic activity of service to the church. It was a means of introducing Catholics to the best thinkers by popularizing their ideas. The press could also serve to reinforce family values and to propagate Catholic moral and social teachings. It could contribute to the solution of social problems by the application of Christian principles to contemporary challenges. German-language publications were especially important organs for faith and cultural preservation and for combating what Gonner identified as the chief social dangers: religious indifference, socialism, anarchism, and extreme political and economic liberal individualism.
Influenced by Pope Leo XIII’s social encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) and by German social reformers, Gonner wanted to combat the chaos of anarchism, the class antagonism of socialism and greed, immorality, and indifference of modern liberal secular society with a more corporate order of Catholic vocational associations. German influences included the reform tradition of Bishop Von Ketteler of Mainz, the Center Party and associated Christian trade unions, and the Volksverein fur das Katholische Deutschland (Popular Union for a Catholic Germany), with its Central Bureau in Munchen-Gladbach and its leaders, Ludwig Windthorst and Ernst Lieber.
As president of the German Catholic Central-Verein and after, Gonner was instrumental in reorganizating the association and in turning it toward social reformism.
What had been a loose federation of state organizations, existing primarily for ethnically based insurance and mutual benevolence purposes, became a much more structured organization with an active social reform purpose. The 1901 Central- Verein convention adopted a program of social political action, its first ever.Gonner borrowed both name and structure when he established the Volksverein fur Amerika (Popular Union for America) in 1902 as the social reform arm of the Central-Verein. Like its German model, it had a Central Bureau in Chicago that spread Catholic social teachings through pamphlets for distribution in parishes. In addition, it sponsored special presentations and social study courses. Gonner envisioned the Central-Verein, enlivened by social reformism, leading all Catholics toward a comprehensive, authentically Christian social reconstruction. All would participate in vocational associations that would safeguard each citizen’s interests while avoiding class antagonism and contributing to natural social organicism a communal rather than an individualist society. Gonner’s final major contribution to the Central-Verein was to establish a committee to prepare young lay Catholics for leadership positions.
He then focused on his other major ambition, a series of daily U.S. Catholic newspapers. Nicholas unionized employees of CPC and professionalized the office. Together with his brother, John, he initiated an expansion and development drive, initially by increasing editions of the Catholic Tribune and eventually by founding the Daily American Tribune.
Despite discussions with Dubuque archbishop James J. Keane, the Gonners were unable to receive the bishop’s permission to make the paper an official diocesan publication. Gonner, recognizing that he would need additional circulation and advertising revenues, sought relocation possibilities in the urban areas surrounding Dubuque after Archbishop Keane started his own paper in 1921.
Archbishop Sebastian Messmer of Milwaukee granted Gonner permission to move the paper to Milwaukee and combine it with the Catholic Herald, the official Milwaukee diocesan publication.
While traveling to Milwaukee, Nicholas was killed in a freak auto accident along with his daughter, Anna, and a Marquette University student. His death meant that neither of his most ambitious efforts was ever fully realized. No other Catholic daily was ever founded, and the Central-Verein’s social reformism had little influence beyond its membership.David L. Salvaterra
See also German Catholic Central-Verein;
Kenkel, Frederick P.
References and Further Reading
Beck, Anthony J. “Nicholas E. Gonner: Lay Leader and Publicist.” America 28, December 23, 1922: 225-227.
Faber, Mary de Paul, OSF. “The Luxemburger Gazette: A Catholic German Language Paper of the Middle West, 1872-1918.” MS thesis, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 1948.
Gebhart, Daniel Francis, OFM. “A History of the Catholic Daily Tribune.” MA thesis, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, 1953.
Gleason, Philip. The Conservative Reformers: German-American Catholics and the Social Order. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968.