DECURTINS, GASPAR. - Sociologist, b. 23 Nov. 1855, at Truns (Canton of Grisons), d. there, 30 May 1916. He studied at the monastery of Disentis, then at the gymnasium of Chur and finally at the Universities of Munich, Strasbourg and Heidelberg. Leader of the Swiss Catholic party, he began, in 1878, his public life as president of the Circle of Disentis and deputy of the Council of Grisons; in 1881 he was a deputy to the Swiss National Council.
Having soon become aware of the importance of economic-social problems, he studied them through a comparative examination of Christian and socialist doctrines, rapidly becoming one of the major champions of the Swiss Catholic social movement. He was a severe critic of the liberal directives then predominant, and a convinced supporter of State intervention for the protection of labor.
A firmly convinced Catholic, he did not exclude collaboration with socialist organizations, both political and trade-union, when this proved a necessary precondition for the implementation of social reforms: it was indeed in this spirit that the Arbeiterbund was instituted in 1886, a vast workers' organization with the aim of protecting the interests of wage-earners, without distinctions of party or faith. D. also took the initiative for the institution of the "Secretariat of the People," with the task of promoting the protection of workers' interests and guaranteeing its effective implementation. In order to encourage the study and development, including theoretical, of the Christian social movement, he organized, in 1889, the Catholic University of Fribourg.
D.'s name remains particularly linked to international labor legislation: in 1888, in agreement with the socialist deputy Favon, he had the Swiss National Council approve a motion inviting the Government to resume negotiations (begun in 1880 by the Swiss Emilio Frey) with European governments to prepare a common labor legislation (La question de la protection ouvrière internationale. Mémoire présenté au Département fédéral de l'Industrie et de l'Agriculture culture par le dr. G. D., conseiller national, Bern 1889). D. was in fact entrusted with preparing the program of the international conference that the Swiss government proposed to convene at Bern in 1889; but, when numerous countries had already adhered, the Emperor of Germany, William II, intervened with the project of an analogous conference, which indeed took place at Berlin in 1890. The Arbeiterbund, at its Congress of Bienne in 1894, gave D. the mandate to convene a meeting of delegates of organized workers from the various countries, and the initiative was expressly approved by the pontiff Leo XIII in a brief addressed to D. The invitation was limited to those who admitted the principle of State intervention for the protection of labor; and the Congress, after various difficulties, could be convened at Zurich (23-28 Aug. 1897), with the participation both of representatives of Christian organizations (Abbot Hitze, Abbot Beck, De Viart, Axmann, etc.) and of socialist organizations (Bebel, Vandervelde, etc.). The Congress closed with the unanimous approval of D.'s proposal for the institution of an international office for workers' protection, with functions of study, documentation and information, and for the convening of an international congress for labor legislation. Indeed the International Congress for Labor Legislation, held at Paris in 1890, led to the institution, with its seat in Switzerland, of the International Association for the Legal Protection of Labor.
With the beginning of the pontificate of Pius X, D. withdrew almost completely from the field of action, to devote himself to studies, and held the chair of history of civilization, instituted on his initiative since 1889; for his resolute opposition to modernism (Tre lettere ad un giovane amico, Italian trans., Rome 1911; A study on modernism, in The catholic Review, July 1913, p. 191), he received a letter of praise from the pontiff Pius X dated 15 Sept. 1910 (AAS, 2 [1910], pp. 738-40).
Bibliography4 works
Luisa Riva Sanseverino