FOR BOTH CROSS AND FLAG
Available in January 2010
American History/Urban Studies/Religion
216 pages, 10 halftones, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4”
Cloth  ISBN 978-1-4399-0028-4 $35,00
Temple University Press

PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEWS

This book tells the story of Sylvester Andriano, a devout San Francisco Italian American Catholic attorney and local government official, whose participation in Archbishop John J. Mitty's "Catholic Action" initiative  provoked an Anti-Catholic campaign against him.  The book describes how Andriano’s enemies used the outbreak of World War II to successfully accuse him of being a Fascist agent, and how the FBI and the U.S. Army accepted the truth of the bogus charges and abused Andriano’s civil liberties by forcing him to be relocated on the basis of false charges that he was a security risk.  

The book is based on Catholic Church archival records, declassified government documents from the U.S. Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Communist Party records, and the private papers and personal correspondence of Sylvester Andriano, his supporters, and his accusers.  The Andriano story provides a cautionary tale about how easily government officials can make mistakes that lead to the abuse of citizenship rights during wartime.  The book also presents the first account of Catholic and Communist competition for political power and cultural influence in the second largest city of the American West during the first half of the twentieth century.  And for that reason it also contributes to our understanding of how European political and cultural rivalries found their way into the urban politics of the American West during the period from World War I to the Cold War.