Fraternity-Testvériség, 1961 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1961-10-01 / 10. szám

FRATERNITY

o

JOSEPH KECSKEMETHY:

ITEMS OF INTEREST

NATIONAL FRATERNAL CONGRESS OF AMERICA HOLDS SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION

The Seventy-fifth Annual Convention of the National Fraternal Congress of America was held this year from September 25 to 27 at Cincinnati, Ohio. Over five hundred delegates, representatives from fraternal societies, and convention visitors attended the meeting.

The new President for the National Fraternal Congress of America is Arthur J. Barrett, Jr., President of the Woodmen of the World, Denver, Colorado. An Executive Committee composed of nine will assist the National Fraternal Congress of America’s President in his work. There are also thirty-four State Fraternal Congresses who are active in their localities during the year.

Presiding at the Congress Convention was Walter L. Rugland, President of the Aid Association for Lutherans, Appleton, Wisconsin. As outgoing President of the Congress he will serve on the organization’s Executive Committee in the current year.

The program for the Diamond Jubilee Meeting of the Congress featured a variety of prominent speakers on social, benevolent and welfare subjects, as well as speakers on life insurance and organization management.

Represented at the convention this year were seventy-one fraternal societies. Our own Federation is a member of the National Fraternal Congress of America and especially in the current year played a substantial role in its activities. In the spring of this year the Secretary of our Federation gave considerable time and effort to promote good will and gain support in both houses of the Congress of the United States for the passage of the Uniform Insurance Code for the District of Columbia. In May and June of this year Mr. Foster Farrell, Secretary- Treasurer, Mr. Frank H. Lee, Chairman, and Mr. Lendon A. Knight, Member of the Lav/ Committee of the NFCA, and our Secretary attended several conferences and hearings in the United States Senate in behalf of bills sponsored by the NFCA to provide for the regulation of fraternal benefit societies in the District of Columbia.

At the Seventy-fifth Congress of the NFCA held in September our Secretary was honored by being requested to conduct Memorial Services remembering those fraternalists and members of the NFCA who passed away during the year. Quoting from a letter of appreciation from Foster F. Farrell, we read: “The members of the National Fraternal Congress of America by resolution adopted at the final Plenary Session of their Seventy-fifth Annual Meeting expressed to you their gratitude and appreciation for the splendid and solemn manner in which you conducted the Memorial Service. It was a very gracious gesture on your part, Sir, to accept President Rugland’s invitation to officiate and