 He was a founding member of the Catholic Radical Alliance, an early labor support organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was important to the foundation of St. Joseph's House of Hospitality, also in Pittsburgh.In 1939, he stated that a just war was nearly impossible, because the "modern abuse of universal conscription" made wars on so gigantic a scale as to be unjustifiable.Later he testified before a Senate hearing in opposition to the Burke-Wadsworth Act, a conscription act pending before Congress in 1940.