Verhovayak Lapja, 1944 (27. évfolyam, 1-52. szám)

1944 / Verhovay Journal

iMhovayJournal

VOL. XXVII. SEPTEMBER 14, 1944 31 72 NO. 37.

An Important Message to All Fraternalists

HON. GREGG L. NEEL, INSURANCE COMMISSIONER OF PENNSYLVANIA, DELIVERS IMPORTANT ADDRESS TO THE CROATIAN

FRATERNAL UNION OF AMERICA

A banquet was held on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Croatian Fraternal Union of America, in Pittsburgh, Pa., September 2, 1944, at which Hon. Gregg L. Neel, Insurance Commissioner .of Pennsylvania delivered a stirring speech addressing not only the membership of the celebrating organization but also all fraternalists of foreign origin. It is for this reason that we print this address in full.

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'T am glad to be here with you today and to give to you in person my sincere best wishes on this, the celebration of your Fiftieth Anniversary. I welcome the opportunity to speak to this convention of people who have adopted the United States as a new home.

In talking to Croatian-Americans today I like to think I am talking to and that my words may be heeded by the members of all our so-called foreign language Fraternals, of which we have so many here in Pennsylvania. Let me remind you that outside of the native Indians, we all spring from some foreign soil. The difference is only a matter of a few generations one way or another. Such differences are immaterial and it should be remembered that a difference of a few generations of a family spent in America over another family which just arrived might be more than offset were the same families able to compare their number of generations away from barbarism.

I would like to presume that a very large percentage of the members of all these Fraternal Societies are citizens of these United States, which opened its doors to them or their parents and which has given them a safe haven as compared with the present plight of the European Homelands of so many of these Fraternalists. I suggest that proof of the true Americanism of all such Fraternal Societies might be evidenced by a by-law requiring first papers for United States citizenship of all applicants before admission into the Fraternal or a promise to take out such papers as soon as the applicant be qualified for citizenship.

Such by-laws might provide for full membership in the Fraternals only on the obtaining of final papers of citizenship. Such a law of membership would lessen in no way the bonds of memory of a parental homeland. In fact it Would eliminate all that criticism, of which there has been some, that members of some such Fraternals owe allegiance to their parental Homeland first and to their adopted country only secondly.

Such a rule or by-law would not interfere with campaigns for new members but would accelerate such a campaign. It would serve the double purpose of causing those who campaigned for members to do another job which

would be of such great importance to America—namely, to sell the idea of citizenship in the

United States along with membership in the Fraternal. Members could be classified on the basis of citizenship and full membership could not be attained until final citizenship had been attained.

High office in the Societies could be restricted to those of full membership rank.

This alone would eliminate gradually during future years that type of criticism which has been most bitter recently. I have in mind where factions exist in such Societies and each side accuses the other of placing loyalty to the native land above and before loyalty to the United States. Such internal strife within some Societies has included charges against certain officers and members as constituting a faction which tried to control the Society for the benefit of those who favored ideologies which are repugnant to ail those who profess and maintain true citizenship in this free land, of these our own United States.

Stories coming to my Department. indicate that such schisms in these Fraternal Societies will continue to exist until some such method is adopted of eradicating the element which does not place first the loyalty of the entire membership to this nation.

I take this opportunity to speak on this subject because what I suggest might well be considered Post War Planning as applicable to and adaptable by our Fraternal Societies.

It has been the proud boast of our ancestors and of our own generation of citizens of these United States that our country has been and is the melting pot of all nationalities. Truly the result of this melting process has been one of the marvels of the ages and of all history but we would he less than truthful, less than worthy of our own heritage and of our own. responsibilities were we not to admit that the melting pot still faces its final test. It has been coming to the boiling point for many years and what this country needs today is leaders with the skill and intuition of the “heater” in the steel mills who decides when the melting pot is at the right heat and when to pour it out as a finished product.

When asked to address this convention it occurred to me that our foreign language Fraternalists should be leaders in this task of completing the melting together of the many nationalities still incompletely assimilated into our citizenship. Isn’t it only logical that the leaders of these Fraternal Societies would have the best opportunity to know of or at least to learn of faults in the melting process, and to warn the other leaders of this great country of such faults and how to correct

the faults and of how to avoid the threatened results thereof and of how to achieve the best product which is to be hoped for from such a melting pot.

This is no small task which I suggest to you Fraternalists, but it is one of which I think you are worthy and one which if handled successfully will result in everlasting credit to your Fraternal Societies.

I ask the leaders and the members alike of all Fraternal Societies to heed my words and plan to help more than ever before in achieving tolerance, understanding and unity among all the people of our Country.

Today, we of this generation of Americans face what we hope will be and insist must be a future, free of the threat of war for many generations to come.

The citizens of these United States must achieve a good and complete job of this assimilation of many nationalities and of several races into one true American citizen of the future. If we cannot do that, how can we hope to do another job, which faces us in the immediate Post War Period of achieving tolerance between the nations of the world, of being leaders in producing cooperation between nations.

Success in that job is a must on our list of problems and responsibilities.

We cannot hope to be successful in leading others if we fail to be united here on the Home Front.

Citizenship in and true loyalty to the United States of all the people in our Country would seem to be our first aim and object.

One of the bulwarks of our faith as Americans is in those words, which have meant so much to us down over the years— “United we stand—Divided we fall.”

Remember those words when you think of this problem of citizenship and of its being an essential faction in the Melting Pot Process.

An increase in the percentage of citizenship in this Country will indicate an advance toward the desired goal of complete assimilation of our many nationalists into that greater American citizen of the future.

This trend of thought naturally causes me to repeat what I have said previously in my talks to Fraternalists, to wit, that the real purpose of a Fraternal Society, if it deserves to survive, is to perform a social task, with insurance benefits only as a by-product.

Some Societies have become so concentrated on the insurance aspect of their existence as to forget to a great extent that the original concept of fraternity was one of brotherhood and involves and demands sympathy and affection which should characterize the brotherly relationship.

Again I urge that this Society

and all others of its kind remember that the first duty of such Fraternal Societies is- to offer brotherly interest and guidance to their members and to all of their fellow Nationalists in order that the lives of such members may be made more happy, more useful, and more abundant.

We must all remember, especially during the Post War period which we face, that our first duty, our first job is to protect and perfect the American Way of Life.

We owe duties and we have obligations beyond the boundaries of our own Country but it is only as we achieve satisfactory results here at home that we will qualify to help others abroad.

I know of no group more fitted for leadership in this most important of Post War Problems than the Croatians, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Russians, Serbs, Ukrainians and all other nationalities reperesented in our list of Fraternal Societies.

In my very mention of some of these many nationalities I should remind all of us of the terrific tasks which face this Nation in completing this amalgamation of peoples and of races.

It is your job and mine and that of every citizen, both born and adopted, and I ask you to do your part not only in the job itself but in spreading throughout the Fraternal World the realization that it is a duty and obligation of all Fraternalists to participate actively to the end that your descendants, and mine, may preserve and enhance the place of the

United States as one of World leadership.

We must ever remember that we are not only Pennsylvanians but Americans, dedicated to the American Way of Life.

It may make little difference to the opportunist what we do today —but will make a great difference to our whole future in this grand country of ours whether we do right or do wrong today.

Let us do everything in our power to maintain the tested and fair system of free enterprise and, private initiative.

Let us go forward under our Constitution—that great document —embodying the wisdom of the centuries that went before us—• which, while protecting the individual, has not impeded his social progress.

Feeling our great responsibility, let each and every one of us, with faces toward the future, determine to discharge the great responsibility placed on us by our common Country and let each one of us resolve to aid this mighty Republic to advance along the pathway of Justice, Equality, Progress, and Christianity.” j * * *

We all subscribe without reservations the statements made by the Hon. Insurance Commissioner of Pennsylvania. The much more so because his address serves to affirm the policy our association has always followed in the conducting of its activities as a fraternal organization.

The Verhovay F. I. Association did always stand for true Americanism. It always urged those of

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