I
Origins & Growth

The first council of the Knights of Columbus chartered in Kansas was Topeka Council 534.   Thomas McAloon, a member of a Washington, D. C. council, was resting at the Topeka home of his brother, Patrick McAloon, for some time during the year 1900 while recovering from an illness.  He it was who prevailed upon J. J. Gorman to come to Topeka and organize the Knights of Columbus in Kansas.  With the aid of Judge Teasdale, then Grand Knight of Kansas City Council 527, the new council was organized and chartered on September 19, 1900.  Topeka remained the only council in the state until a year later when councils were organized at Salina in September and Hutchinson in November.  During the spring and summer of 1902 councils were organized at Parsons, St. Marys, and Severance.  That autumn Territorial Deputy R. F. Hayden of Topeka sent out a call for the meeting of the first State Convention.  At the meeting in Topeka on November 18, 1902, the State Council was organized.  P. J. Monaghan of Topeka was elected State Deputy, T. J. Coughlin of Topeka was named Secretary, and J.C. Supple of Salina became the first State Treasurer.

An anonymous Knight, writing in the "Kansas Columbian Number" of the St. Mary's College Dial in February, 1921, gives this picture of the early days: "The growth was slow at first, due to the difficulty of providing degree teams.  For the conferring of degrees in those days, men traveled from the far East, and usually at their own expense.  Later... Chicago had organized a famous degree team, and the names of Burke and McArdle will never be forgotten by the men who were initiated at that time.  The present day member may well emulate the early pioneers in the spirit of sacrifice they displayed.  Much of the work lay in the institution of new councils, and for reasons obvious to the new members especially, it was necessary to bring along an audience; so it was nothing unusual to see special trains coming from points within a radius of one hundred miles or more, laden with members who in the spirit of the times considered it a fraternal duty and not altogether a pleasure to attend.  Thus a splendid and lasting impression was made in the town or village where the new council was instituted.

"The work too was of a very high standard, in charge of artists in their respective lines, and while the Order has made rapid strides in other departments, it is doubtful if in all cases it has maintained the exceptionally high standard set in the initial years of the Order in the conferring of degrees....

"Of the old pioneers special mention is due Mr. J. Hurley and Mr. Frank Carroll of Leavenworth; Mr. Frank DeBus of Parsons; Mr. Hubert Lardner of Fort Scott; Mr. J. Lannon of Topeka; Mr. George Bordenkircher of Emporia; Mr. Charles O'Laughlin of Kansas City; Dr. Ward of Horton; Mr. Edward Heeney of Severance, and those other patriarchs who held office and attended conventions and shaped the policies of the Order in the early stage of its growth."

At the time of the organization of the State Council the Knights of Columbus had about five hundred members in Kansas.  The Order grew steadily, but not spectacularly, until 1916 when it numbered over six thousand members in sixty-six councils.  In 1903 there were ten councils and almost a thousand members, in 1904 eighteen councils and 1448 members.  This steady growth continued in the following years and by 1907 the Order numbered thirty-nine councils and about thirty-three hundred members.  The only indication of the brief financial panic of 1907 was a slackening in the growth of the number of councils.  Only two were instituted in 1907-08 as compared with seven in the preceding year.  But at the convention of 1908, before the state had four thousand members, State Deputy J. W. Gibbons reported that the "coming year will be the crucial test. . . . The boom is over.  Nearly every Council . . . has had a loss in membership." He felt that those who had dropped out were mostly men who had been seeking only their own advantage and that the Order was better off without them.  A year later he complained that a number of insurance members had had to be suspended.  In spite of this the early rate of growth had been partially recovered, for the year showed a net gain of about six hundred and fifty members and six new councils.  The first serious slackening in the growth of the number of members occurred in 1909-10, although it is possible that these were inactive members, casualties of the hard times following 1907, carried on the books until this time.  The difficulties of the period are reflected in a resolution offered to the State Council of 1910 suggesting that the delegates to the National Council propose a reduction in the initiation fee to five dollars.

These difficulties were followed by another year of vigorous growth, and in 1912 State Deputy W. J. Moriarity of St. Marys announced that the Order in Kansas with its fifty-four councils and over five thousand members was too large to continue the custom of expecting the State Deputy and his staff to administer the third degree.  As a consequence he had, in the past year, begun to form district teams.  But in the years immediately preceding the first World War the Order's rate of growth slowed perceptibly.  In the year 1911-12 the Order in Kansas was almost static; few new members were initiated, the State Deputy complained that there were far too many lapsations, and the one new council instituted was offset by the loss of another.  Ottawa 1440 had lost so many members by transfer to newly instituted councils nearby, that finally all were transferred and Ottawa's charter was surrendered.  The year 1912-13 brought some improvement but the depression that threatened just before the war was reflected in the year 1913-14 when the total number of members increased less than a hundred.  State Deputy W. D. Jochems of Wichita in his annual report expressed the belief that some councils had been established in communities too small to furnish the necessary number of members and that their whole existence was simply a constant struggle to keep up the required number of insurance members.  He ascribed the increase in lapsations to the poor crop year and financial depression in Kansas, although he also felt that a deeper cause was the fact that the councils had drifted into a habit of indifference regarding membership.  In any case Knighthood in Kansas began to grow vigorously again in the following year, and before the United States entered the World War and the Knights of Columbus began their great war work the Order had over six thousand members and sixty-six councils in Kansas.

The first World War began a period of unprecedented growth for the Kansas Knights of Columbus which extended from 1915 to 1921.  Before the United States joined the Allies the Knights of Columbus were active in supplying the religious and recreational needs of the National Guard on the Mexican border during the Villa troubles.  After the United States entered the European war the Knights of Columbus increased their prestige enormously both by taking the initiative in raising funds and by ably organizing and administering recreational facilities for troops at home and abroad.  Their disinterested service attracted great numbers of Catholic men to the organization to join in the work.  As a consequence the membership in Kansas was doubled between 1917 and 1922.

Kansas Knights added over a thousand to their number for the first time in 1917-18.  The State Deputy, M. A. Quigley of Atchison, reported that many men, newly inducted into the services, were joining, The growth of Knighthood in Kansas in 1918 and 1919 has never since been equaled.  More than two thousand men joined the Knights of Columbus in this state in each of those years.  In 1920 the Order in Kansas numbered 12,799 with 4,892 insurance members and 7,907 associate members.  Meanwhile the number of councils, which had grown gradually to seventy-two in 1919, jumped to eighty-three in the same year. In 1920-21 another thousand members and three more councils were added in the state.  The peak of the war and post-war growth was reached in 1922 with 14,052 members, of whom 5,671 were insurance members and 8,381 were associate members.  A year later the number of councils reached ninety-nine.

With the end of the post-war boom, felt especially by agricultural areas after 1920, the membership of the Knights of Columbus in Kansas began a long decline.  As State Deputy M. J. Healy of Topeka remarked in 1929: "During and after the recent World War, thousands of new members joined our ranks.  Many were actuated by a temporary patriotic impulse.  We needed money and members in order to carry out the noble program of the Order during the War. . . . When the immediate need for such recruits had passed, there began a slump in membership."

It is axiomatic in the Knights of Columbus that the insurance members are the solid foundation of the Order.  A glance at the accompanying graph illustrates the truth of this.  One of the weaknesses of the wartime growth was that a large portion of it was associate membership.  For example, the increase from 1917 to 1919 was primarily in associate members. The number of insurance members, however, grew rapidly from 1919 to 1921, continued to increase slowly to 1925 when the number levelled off until there was another period of rapid growth aided by a successful membership drive and the good times in 1928-30.  It continued to climb slowly until 1932 saw the tragedy of hundreds of men being forced to drop their insurance.  State Deputy T. P. Downs of Beloit remarked in 1921 that the number of insurance members was gradually increasing in proportion to the number of associate members and hoped that insurance members would soon outnumber the latter.  This hope was to be realized in 1927, but only at the price of the loss of many associate members, whose numbers declined uninterruptedly for twelve years from the 1922 peak of 8,381 to 2,539 in 1934.

The peak year of 1922 at the same time brought evidence that the membership boom was over.  State Deputy T. P. Downs reported that there had been a "goodly number of suspensions" in the past year owing to "financial stringency and other causes."  He recommended concerted efforts to secure reinstatements.  In the same convention the per capita assessment for the State Council was cut from seventy-five cents to fifty cents, as the State Deputy had promised.  Also significant was a resolution recommending a reduction of the national per capita tax because members, especially of smaller councils, were finding it increasingly difficult to keep up their dues.  In 1923 low farm prices were further aggravated by poor crops.  Although about eight hundred new members had been initiated in the past year, the membership suffered a net loss.  Two years later State Deputy P. J. McGinley of Frontenac reported that there had been many lapsations and pointed out that it was mistaken kindness for a council to let its members get so far behind in their dues that the debt finally forced them out.  Between 1924 and 1927 five councils were lost through merger or forfeiture of their charters.  State Deputy C. A. Beeby of Hays reported in 1927 that misunderstanding of the Supreme Council's action in levying a special assessment for a fund to finance publicity concerning conditions in Mexico and to aid refugee priests and nuns from that unhappy land had been added to financial depression as an explanation of continued losses.  However, he added that interest in securing new members had been stimulated by contests such as that between the State Council of Kansas and that of South Dakota.  The Mexican assessment was followed by another for Mississippi Valley flood relief and further repercussions.  The 1928 convention rejected resolutions that in effect condemned the action of the Supreme Council.

Not until the convention of 1929 could the State Deputy, M. J. Healy of Topeka, report that things looked brighter.  The councils sought to reinstate lapsed members and the Selective Membership program of the Supreme Council brought some success.  There was a sharp increase in the growth of insurance membership from 1928 to 1930, and the only net gain in membership in these years was due solely to increased insurance membership.  A new ruling of the Supreme Board to the effect that associate members under twenty-six years of age could not be accepted unless they were ineligible, for insurance probably helped this trend.  However, this brief recovery was nipped in the bud by the crash of 1929 and the depression following.  Before it hit the number of councils had been worked up to one hundred and six.

Membership in the Knights of Columbus declined sharply throughout the nation during the depression and Kansas was no exception.  In 1931 State Deputy J. J. Sullivan of Salina reported that the depression had resulted in a great number of lapsations.  A resolution recommended that the per capita tax be reduced.  In the following year there was complaint that although the Supreme Council dispensed Honorary members who had reached the age of sixty-five and had been members in good standing for twenty-five years from payment of per capita, the local council still had to pay it.  Again there was a cry for a lower national per capita tax.  In this, the national jubilee year of the Knights of Columbus, State Deputy J. J. Sullivan wrote: "I regret that I am unable to report that this jurisdiction has exceeded its quota in the drive for fifty thousand members in our fiftieth year.  Alas, after the experience of the past two years I am delighted to be able to say that we are still doing business in Kansas. . . ." The following year saw the greatest decline in the Order's history in Kansas.  Although two hundred and fifty new members and reinstatements had been received, the net loss for the year was over a thousand.  For the first time there was notable loss in insurance members.  In 1934 the Order in Kansas reached its lowest point in membership between the peak of 1922 and the present day, a total of 9,047 from the top of 14,052 in 1922.  In the last two years three councils had been lost through merger or forfeiture of charter.  State Deputy Vincent A. Smith of Wichita, however, insisted that the outlook was encouraging for more candidates were being received than in past years.  Permission to admit associate members at the age of twenty-one, even though they were eligible for insurance, helped to some extent.  However, the work of the state officers and the District Deputies was handicapped by the Supreme Council's decision to respond to the cry for economy by drastically cutting the budget permitted these officers for organizational work.  As a consequence the State Council could either foot the bill itself or curtail initiations and other activities leading to increased membership.  The convention of that year adopted a resolution that the Supreme Council's economy was working irreparable harm to the Order, and recommended that the last cut in the national per capita tax be restored.  The temper of the times is reflected in resolutions, rejected by the convention, that the Supreme Officers should take a twenty-five percent cut in salary and that the Supreme Board should cease meeting at expensive resorts.  In regard to insurance members, it was resolved that Kansas delegates to the Supreme Convention should urge that the victims of the Automatic Assessment Loan privilege be continued as active members, for the failure to permit this most frequently resulted only in loss of interest in the Order.

The period from 1934 to 1943 was one of relative stability in the membership of the Knights of Columbus in Kansas, the number fluctuating between nine and ten thousand.  The total membership rose gradually to 10,004 in 1938 but slipped back to 9,368 by 1942.  That the Order in Kansas was in a healthy condition is seen by its activities and the fact that the present day organization of its varied interests dates from this period.  The number of councils meanwhile rose gradually to a hundred and eight.  In 1935 State Deputy E. D. Sheehan of Goodland felt that drought conditions in Kansas continued to hamper the growth of the Order.  State Deputy M. J. Dorzweiler of Hays reported in 1937 that at the convention of the previous year the crops looked good and the outlook bright, but the delegates had hardly returned home when excessive heat and prolonged drought fixed hard times once more on Kansas.  The Fourth Degree in these years received almost no new members and ceased almost all activity.  In 1941 State Deputy A. J. Pflumm of Shawnee reported that suspensions and lapsations had been heavy.  However, the Supreme Council began a series of membership drives in 1935 and, more important, added programs of genuinely useful activity which seemed to improve year by year.  This policy soon began to show results.

After 1942 the membership of the Knights of Columbus in Kansas began to climb, and since 1944 it can be described as rocketing, adding a thousand in that year, and almost two thousand in the following year.  A repetition of that phenomenal growth brought the number to 15,114 by the time of the convention in 1947, and by June 30, 1949 there were 17,138 Knights in Kansas.  The number of councils also grew rapidly to 125 in 1949.

That this is a healthier growth than that following the first World War is indicated by the higher percentage of insurance members.  Kansas has for some years had the highest ratio of insurance to associate members in the entire order.  Insurance members now number almost ten thousand, while there are just over seven thousand associate members.