LETTER TO HEAD OF US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey

3839 20 Street,

San Francisco, CA 94114

415-824-6321

twocromeys@earthlink.net

Thomas J. Donohue, President and CEO

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

1615 H Street, NW

Washington, DC 20062-2000

Dear Mr. Donohue,

I read with interest the article about you in the NY Times of June 2, 2013. I too was born in Brooklyn.

I am the beneficiary of The Episcopal Church Pension Fund, an enormously rich fund providing retirement benefits for retired clergy widows and widowers. JP Morgan and Bishops of the church started the fund in the early 20^th century. I have profited from free market capitalism.

While I am a knee-jerk liberal and deeply concerned for the poor in this country and around the world, I do appreciate that capitalism is the best economic system for most people. However, it is a truism that capitalism leaves a large number of people behind who are in poverty, inadequate housing and poor health.

I just can’t imagine that the smart, enterprising, intelligent, energetic, creative and sensitive leaders of the capitalistic system cannot make adjustments to the existing system that so many women, children and men are not in such deep economic trouble. Obviously there is plenty of money moving through the economic system.

I don’t pretend to have answers or systems to make such adjustments. In my work as a priest in New York City and in San Francisco, I have seen such poverty and injustice. I do not think the poor have to be always with us.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Robert Warren Cromey

Father Cromey