Fraternity-Testvériség, 1952 (30. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1952-10-01 / 10. szám

Minding Our Own Business

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The National Fraternal Congress, the parliament of all the American fraternals, held in Boston, Mass., as usual was a highly informative affair for all those present. With our treasurer, we were interested mostly in the discussions about the different methods of investing the accumulated assets of the fraternals and became more than ever convinced that the method followed by us is the best possible for our particular requirements. It was pleasant to meet the officers of the other nationwide Hungarian fraternals in the American Athen.

The following lines are directed to the Rev. Szabó of Alpha, N. J.: Dear Friend: in your monthly publication you were kind enough to make a few friendly remarks about our Federation, the welfare of which has been always close to your heart. You mention that it was a mistake on the part of our Supreme Council to sell the old Home Office building of ours. Instead of being sold, the building should have been kept and used as a Hungarian museum and library, — even if the Federation would be deprived of the income of the amount representing the value of the building.

We gratefully note that you are an enthusiastic spokesman for the museum-library project which, incidentally, is also one of our favorite plans for the future. However you should not forget that the uniform law for the whole country binds all fraternals to own one single property only, the one which houses its own headquarters. Consequently, when we purchased our new Home Office building, the selling of the other one became mandatory, if we didn’t want to get in trouble with the insurance departments of the different states.

Fortunately our new home is large enough to permit some planning of this important project, which God willing some day we hope to realize.

The attention of all branch secretaries is called to the fact that the 12 cent monthly branch deduction on adult dues begins Jan. 1, 1953 and not sooner. There won’t be any change in the amount of deduction on the Juvenile monthly dues.

One of the radical Hungarian publications recently made a lowdown attack against those leaders of nationality groups whose names appear in a publication of one of the political parties, among them 12 American-Hungarians, including the Secretary and Auditor of our Federation. The pamphlet in question (not even seen by the present writer to this day) contains the principles of the hoped-for liberation of the peoples behind the Iron Curtain as proposed by Congressman Charles Kersten (Wis.) who was mainly instrumental for the passing of the legislation which gives 100 million dollars to help those who recently escaped from Red tyranny.

Our secretary and auditor when informed about their names being published in this pamphlet, immediately made inquiries: who gave permission to use their and the Federation’s name, because nobody asked them or the Federation for permission. The answer was that the compilers used the Congressional Record and other documents arbitrarily to pick out the names of those who are supporting the liberation principles of Rep. Kersten. Nobody brothered to ask permission from the persons concerned and we may safely assume that hardly anyone of these people knew that their names were to be used this way.

The whole miserable procedure shows how irresponsibly political parties work, especially when they are in dire need of votes.

At the time of writing these lines, the following comparisons can be made between 1952 and 1951 in some fields of the Federation’s work:

Up to the middle of October, 1952, we settled 164 adult deaths cases. In 1951 the number at the corresponding date was almost the same: 161. The number of juvenile deaths was 6 in 1952 and 5 in 1951.

We settled sofar 224 sick benefit cases in 1952, the number in 1951 was a little higher: 239.

The number of certificates turned in for cash surrender was 276 in 1952 and 258 in 1951, and we issued 137 loans this year against 131 in 1951.

By Edmund Vasváry