William Penn Life, 1988 (23. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1988-01-01 / 1. szám
January 1988, William Penn Life, Page 3 Building our future Before we grow further, we must first re-establish our roots By Elmer Charles President Emeritus The following is the official English translation of the address of Elmer Charles, president emeritus, delivered in the Hungarian language at the 31st General Convention, Sept. 14, 1987. At this 31st General Convention, which coincides with our one hundred and first anniversary, I have been granted the honorable and fortunate distinction of addressing those gathered here: the Officers and Board of Directors, the guests, but especially my fellow delegates, good friends, those who are building and leading faithful and devoted branches, and the Canadian Hungarians. I greet you with love and respect, saying in Hungarian "Isten Hozott”, in English "Welcome” and in French "Soyez le bien venue”. We have often said and emphasized how long a time 100 years is in the life of an Association. We have talked about the difficulties and the achievements. We have talked about the founders and have expressed our thanks to the old and new members. We honor and appreciate the Officers and our workers. In accordance with, and in the knowledge of all that I have listed, I have chosen as the goal of my speech the future, the future of our Association because this is now our most important task. For us, the still living witnesses, abounding in good and bad experiences, it is our task and calling to hand over and to mark out that responsible line of action which is the holy and eternal task of those leaders, builders and Hungarian brothers and sisters who will come after us. And it is this task which they must keep before themselves and defend. Before I turn to the holy and illustrious task before us, we have to acknowledge, we have to recognize that this 101-year-old Association was founded and preserved by Hungarian American brothers. Gladly and with a joy filled heart, I recommend giving this great and glorious task to American Hungarians. What is our holy task? Keeping in mind the future of the Association, 1 see the two most important things as: 1) the practice of fraternalism 2) the preservation of the Hungarian tradition. Let us not forget that it was by the assumption of responsibility felt toward their neighbor, their countrymen, that our predecessors founded today’s Association. It was a sense of responsibility, the foundation of which was the law of helping one another; not for the purpose of getting rich but to help one another. Help based on mutual trust which through honest work and behavior clinging faithfully to the basic principle and plan, can enrich and strengthen the Association and not only can it morally soar above, but materially create such a base for its members that it will be impossible to get into a fix. We have already talked many times about fraternalism, but we have already encountered in the course of the past 100 years, intellectual confusion surrounding this word. It is the important task of our future leaders to eliminate this confusion and to do away with the abuses connected with it. It is our duty to keep the basic idea, the basic law and to adhere to the By-Laws, for whoever violates these, violates the foundation of the Association, destroying it and bringing it to ruin. Every goal, plan and direction of our Association can be ruined if the founding law or the By-Laws can be infringed or broken by anyone at all, or if they can be appropriated for one’s own individual goal or simply evaded. Emphasizing the above, I would like to bring to the attention of those directing the life of our Association, to the attention of our new and future leadership, the fact that the By-Laws are just as dear a value in the leading of our Association as the 200-year-old United States Constitution is in our everyday life. My 20-year presidency, my double-seven age, my 50 years of activity on behalf of the Association and my experience authorize me as a still living witness to proclaim and tell and give over to you here my sincere good advice. Delegate brothers and sisters! As American Hungarians, we can valiantly and proudly say that we have never been ashamed of our national origin, our being Hungarian. We value the fact that our predecessors founded churches and the Association. They built churches and cultural houses. They kept them up with many financial difficulties and with great effort. Our grandparents and parents faithfully raised us in the spirit of the old country; they taught us to love one another, to sing, to dance, to be respectful in Hungarian and to speak, to go to church and to pray. It is our task and responsibility to remain faithful to our being Hungarian with even greater effort, sacrifice and work, to share this value with our children and to hand it over to them. The removal of one single foundational pillar is sufficient to shake our Hungarian heritage, to sap its strength and to carry it toward collapse. We have examples for it. We have reason to be afraid. In the interest of Hungarian traditions, valiantly, again and again, we are ready to unite so that results can be born from our unity. We cannot allow the flame of the ideal of unity to die out in our hearts. The plan which we put before you in 1982 is just as useful, worthwhile, beautiful and noble today as it was then. In the course of a hundred years, we received many smaller Hungarian associations into our community. With our deeds, we have acquired a good name for ourselves across the country. Our members proudly proclaim that, yes, this is a Hungarian foundation and for a hundred years it has been keeping, teaching, cultivating and supporting the Hungarian tradition. It has been the support of our language, dance, music, literature and culture. And we do this in such measure that the community of both America and the old country pay attention to it. It is the duty of everyone present here to remain faithful to this tradition and observing the wish of our ancestors, for those now here gathered together to profess and believe that this national light calls - us to common survival. Until we successfully achieve what I have presented to you, there is no rest. Until then, we have to constantly struggle so that we might be able to say with our great poet: The Hungarian name has become beautiful again worthy of its great name of yore. And when that great day arrives, the glorious celebration of victory, then all our voices will shout, "Those who have begun it have finished it.” God grant that in the future, and always, it will be so.
