V
Public Relations

As soon as the Knights of Columbus in Kansas had grown to such a size that it could be recognized as a statewide organization, there began to unfold a field of opportunity in which this new body of Catholic men could be of service to the people of Kansas.  During the course of the years these opportunities were to include, not only the defense of the rights and privileges of Catholics in Kansas, but also the championing of the principles of true democratic government as against movements of intolerance, bigotry, and prejudice.  While the Order never at any time engaged in partisan politics, it has always stood out fearlessly against and actively participated in the fight to defeat the various theories that have from time to time threatened to strike at the foundation of our government.

In the early years a special committee of Knights was appointed to act on each particular problem that presented itself.  During the twenties and thirties a great many controversial laws were proposed and considered and as a result there was appointed a yearly Legislative Committee.  It had been recommended that it be a permanent committee as early as 1920 but it was only in 1935, at Topeka, that the State Convention amended the by-laws to provide for a standing Legislative Committee.

However, the primary purpose was not to influence legislation.  There are many issues involving the relationship between the Catholic and non-Catholic people of Kansas which cannot properly be included under the term "legislative".  Therefore the name of this committee was changed in 1945 to the "Public Relations Committee".  It has usually been the largest committee of the state organization, consisting of key men picked by the State Deputy from all parts of the state.  Its chairman in 1935 and 1936 was M. J. Healy.  Since then James Malone has been its chairman.  The committee's activities have been among the most valuable contributions of the Knights of Columbus to the people of Kansas.

The years after the first World War saw an increase of intolerance in the United States.  These were the years of Attorney-General Palmer's Red hunt, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Oregon School Law.  Catholics generally were under attack, and the Knights of Columbus were again confronted with the infamous Bogus Oath.  In keeping with the fashion of the time propaganda against the Church was blamed on radical groups.  The convention of 1919, for instance, attributed current intrigue against Catholicism to the I. W. W. and Marxian Socialism.  As a matter of fact Catholics were themselves among the victims of this outburst of prejudice.

Bigotry reached a new and dangerous high in the Oregon School law which outlawed private, and consequently parochial, schools.  It was necessary to carry, the case to the Supreme Court.  Members in Kansas raised approximately a thousand dollars to help defray the expense of this appeal, which culminated in a monumental decision establishing the principle that parents have an inherent right under the Constitution to educate their children according to the dictates of their consciences.

The extreme nationalism of the period lent itself readily to the regularly recurring bigotry and prejudice.  There has always been easy money in the organization of bigotry and in this post-war period willing caterers to prejudice were not wanting -- the Ku Klux Klan was the result.  Decent people everywhere would rather forget those years with their atmosphere of hatred and suspicion.  Few communities were entirely free of the blight, and Knights everywhere had their work cut out for them as defenders of their rights as Christians and citizens.

Tension in Kansas reached a high point perhaps at Great Bend where feeling ran so high that Governor Henry J. Allen stopped in that city and appealed for peace, saying that he feared there might be mob violence and riot.  After his return to Topeka the Governor wrote to James Malone, then State Deputy, that while at Great Bend an accusation had been made that the Catholics had just brought in nearly two hundred rifles and stored them in the basement of the church for work against the Klan.  He stated that he thought this tale was an absurdity, but that it had been told him by leading citizens and he asked that an investigation be made to furnish proof that the charge was false.  The Committee arranged for the Mayor of Great Bend and several prominent Protestant business men to inspect the Catholic church and parish house.  Of course, the charge was proved false, ludicrously so when the investigators found that there was no basement under the Catholic church.

As part of the Klan attack various public meetings were advertised at which the speakers viciously criticized the Catholic Church.  They particularly misled the public as to the Catholic attitude toward marriage between Protestants.  Members of the Committee made speeches, wrote news articles and printed pamphlets to counteract this false information.  This work had been facilitated by the convention of 1923 which recommended that funds be placed at the disposal of the State Executive Council for the defense of constitutional rights.  A year later the State Deputy reported that over a thousand dollars had been spent to counteract this malicious propaganda.

Members of the committee furthermore opposed a bill before the 1923 session of the Kansas Legislature to grant a charter to the Ku Klux Klan and were successful in helping to defeat it.  There is no doubt that the leadership of this committee was greatly responsible for the final rejection of the Klan by the people of Kansas and in this work alone it rendered an outstanding service in public relations for the Catholics of Kansas.

The attack on Catholics found a handy target in the Knights of Columbus as the outstanding organization of Catholic men.  It became necessary to explain the Order and its principles to the public.  Even the emblem of the Order was questioned and had to be explained.  For the most part the attempt to put the Knights of Columbus in a false light centered in the distribution of the Bogus Fourth Degree Oath which had appeared before the war and was again widely circulated.  According to this "oath" Knights were supposed to be disloyal to their government and to thirst for the extirpation of non-Catholics - all in remarkably vile and scurrilous language.  That the alleged oath was a fake had been proved in a number of successful suits for libel before the war, but this did not discourage its use by the Klan.  State Deputy James Malone reported in 1923 that Kansas had been flooded with the Bogus Oath, especially toward the end of 1922.  In the spring of 1923 the Supreme Council deposited the sum of five thousand dollars and advertised in all the leading papers of the state that this sum would be paid for proof that Knights of Columbus did subscribe to this oath.  In addition almost a half million pieces of literature were distributed to counteract the effect of this malicious propaganda.  In the face of this effective publicity distribution of the Bogus Oath died down.  Only two cases of its appearance in Kansas were reported in connection with Al Smith's campaign.  It reappeared in southeastern Kansas in 1935 but a year later State Deputy E. D. Sheehan could report that a written acknowledgment of error and repudiation of the act had been obtained from the parties responsible for the distribution of the oath.  Nevertheless it continues to turn up periodically.

Since one of the facets of the Red scare after the war was the fear that American historians were not sufficiently laudatory in their description of our past, and since the Klan in its attack had insisted that Catholics are not loyal citizens, there was a natural tendency for Knights in insisting that they too were 100% Americans to join in the parade for a rather jingoistic national history.  The Legislative Committee engaged briefly in a drive for greater purity in school textbooks along these lines.  But the whole affair did make everyone more conscious of the value of history.  The prizes for historical writing awarded by the Supreme Council at this time helped to produce some valuable works.  Samuel Flagg Bemis, now dean of writers on American Diplomatic History, was awarded first prize.

About this same time there was considerable labor unrest in Kansas.  The State Legislature had enacted a law creating a Court of Industrial relations for the purpose of controlling labor disputes, and the law had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.  In an effort to bring further information on this problem to the people of Kansas, the committee arranged for a series of lectures by the Reverend John A. Ryan, professor of Sociology at the Catholic University of America, and a nationally recognized expert on labor matters.

The task of the Knights of Columbus in connection with the persecution of their co-religionists in Mexico was to get the facts of that sad story before their fellow-citizens.  By 1926 the persecution had reached a new level of virulence and at the end of the year the hierarchy of the United States issued a pastoral letter on the religious situation in Mexico.  In August the Supreme Council levied an assessment totaling one million dollars on all local councils in order to carry out educational work concerning conditions in Mexico and to aid refugee priests and nuns from that unhappy country.  The quota for Kansas was twenty thousand dollars and in view of the declining membership at the time the levy provoked some protest.

In 1935 resolutions protesting the attitude of the State Department in its apparent condonement of the persecution, and supporting the Borah resolution for an investigation of the matter, were referred to a special committee.  Its recommendation that all Knights and councils request their Senators and Representatives to do all in their power to get the Borah Resolution reported favorably to the Senate was adopted.

Throughout this period many articles were written and published by Kansas Knights opposing the recognition of the Mexican government by the United States until religious freedom was granted.  Herman J. Tholen wrote a booklet entitled Persecuted Mexico and two thousand copies of it were distributed.  A few years later he wrote an able expose of the Spanish Civil War.

There has been scarcely a year in the life of the Public Relations Committee and its predecessors that has not seen it concerned with some question concerning the rights of Catholic children, parochial schools, or Catholic teachers.  In this field the invaluable contribution of the Knights of Columbus through this committee to the Catholics of the state is particularly obvious.  It has been ceaselessly watchful that no citizen shall be deprived of any of his rights because of his religious beliefs.

A bill proposed by the committee was passed by the Kansas Legislature in 1937 recognizing the right of parochial school students to ride on public school buses.  In 1939 a bill providing free textbooks for the children of indigent families was amended at the request of the committee to provide free textbooks for students of parochial schools under the same conditions.  In 1941 the committee was instrumental in obtaining the right of parochial school students to obtain free medical and dental inspection furnished by the state to school children.  In the same year the committee successfully contested an injunction against Sisters teaching in a district school at Piqua.  A movement was started in 1949 to excite religious intolerance toward Sisters who teach in public schools in Kansas because they wear religious garb.  The committee helped to call the attention of the Legislature to the maneuver and the danger was averted.

No solution has ever been found for the recurring problem of discrimination against Catholic teachers.  The State Council of 1925 resolved that the applications for teaching positions in the public schools of the state of Kansas should not request the religion of the applicant since it had been admitted, in one instance at least, that this question was on the form for the express purpose of discrimination.  The convention also directed the State Deputy to appoint a committee of three to raise funds to help the bishops to test a case of such discrimination in Mulberry.  Nothing more was heard of this case in the Proceedings and the question itself reappeared only in 1930 when the State Deputy was again directed to appoint a committee, this time to investigate the matter.  The committee reported in 1932 that it had concluded that the only recourse against an offending school board was ouster proceedings and that this would be undesirable and unsatisfactory if attained.  It found that the form of the application was decided upon by each local school board and that consequently the best approach to the problem would be a campaign of education through the press.  However, the convention adopted a resolution recommending that Kansas enact a law similar to one in force in New York which prohibited inquiry concerning the religion of persons seeking employment in the public schools.  The convention of 1935 again urged that the measure be pressed.  However, this method of discrimination remains although at present the shortage of teachers has minimized the problem.

For some years the committee assisted at each session of the Legislature in obtaining an appropriation of seven hundred and fifty dollars per year for the Holy Epiphany and Guardian Angel Homes for colored children in Leavenworth.

The convention of 1937 adopted a resolution that the State Board of Administration should be petitioned that wherever the services of a Catholic priest were needed in state institutions he be given legal status and receive compensation.  A year later this had been accomplished, at least for state institutions at Norton, Larned, and Lansing.

The Catholic institutions of Kansas have benefitted enormously from the work of the Public Relations Committee.  For example, the sales tax law enacted in 1937 presented a large number of problems to the Catholic religious, educational, and charitable institutions of Kansas.  The law of 1937 made no exemption for sales to such organizations.  In the special session of 1938 the Committee proposed an amendment to the law which granted exemption from tax to all sales of property "used exclusively for religious, benevolent and charitable purposes." This amendment passed and during the next few years numerous rulings had to be obtained by the Committee as to its proper application.  A form exemption certificate was mimeographed and sent to all Catholic institutions together with copies of all rulings.  Many such services were rendered.

In the 1939 session of the Legislature an attempt was made to place all presently exempted real estate upon the tax rolls and have it appraised for the purpose of giving "greater publicity to the present liberal exemptions." This obvious attempt to tax Church property was defeated mainly through the efforts of the committee.  On numerous occasions the committee has helped obtain real estate exemptions for Catholic institutions, particularly hospitals.  The committee has also assisted our Catholic institutions on many occasions in the intricate field of the numerous federal taxes.

When, in 1949, the Legislature enacted the new law regulating the possession and sale of intoxicating liquor, the committee carefully scrutinized the bill to see that the purchase of wine for sacramental purposes by churches and religious institutions would be exempt from taxes and license fees.

Several attempts have been made to enact legislation prejudicial to Knights of Columbus insurance.  The insurance department of the Order is a non-profit organization existing solely for the protection of the families of its members, and yet, but for the diligent efforts of the Public Relations Committee, drastic and restrictive legislation might have been enacted.

From time to time various proposals have been made to relax the laws restricting the granting of divorce in Kansas.  The committe has always been alert to object to any such amendments.

The committee responded to a campaign to suppress indecent literature in 1939.  Upon investigation it found that a news agency in Topeka was distributing indecent and immoral literature on a state-wide basis.  Members of the committee cooperated with the county attorney by furnishing witnesses and evidence.  The manager of the agency was arrested, tried before a jury, and convicted.  The action had a tremendous effect throughout the state.  However, there was further complaint about such literature in 1942 and in the following year the committee lent its support to a successful move to strengthen the law.

Other matters that might well be classified as public relations will be found in the chapter on the Catholic Activities Committee simply because they seemed to fit in with other projects described there.  It must be remembered that the activities of the State Council have been systematically divided between its permanent administrative committees only in the past few years.  Before that there was some overlapping and the description of the history of the State Council in terms of the present committee organization is necessarily somewhat arbitrary.

When the Legislative Committee was finally superseded in 1945 by the Public Relations Committee the latter announced that its field was to be the general welfare of the Church but particularly the interest and welfare of our schools, hospitals and other charitable institutions, and civil and legal questions affecting the clergy and the Sisterhoods.  Basically the committee desired that its activity, like the activity of its predecessor, should establish a better relationship with public officials and with the non-Catholic public generally.

Firmly founded upon a tradition of selfless service and with a proud history of invaluable assistance rendered to its fellow-Catholics, the Public Relations Committee looks to the future with renewed strength.  Its purpose remains to render to the Church in Kansas, to its institutions, and to the bishops, priests, and Sisters, a maximum of service, and to meet all legal and legislative problems in the light of justice and good reason, and at the same time with that degree of dignity which will command the respect and confidence of the general public of the various departments of state, the state officials, and the members of the legislature.