 |
With enthusiasm, great energy and high ideals of
Columbianism, William J. Guste, Sr., K.S.G., assumed the post of State
Deputy on July 1, 1925, but despite his splendid, self sacrificing work,
extensive visits throughout the state and a maximum of personal contacts
with state officers and subordinate Council officers, the membership
decline continued as the reaction to the over exuberant spirit of the war
days and the period immediately thereafter, spread more and more. Added to
this was a major disaster that struck the Mississippi Valley, wreaking
havoc over much of Louisiana; this was the great Mississippi River Flood
of 1927.
|
|
By the end of March, 1926, the roster of members in
the state was down to 9413, a net loss of 671, but for the first time
there was an increase in insurance membership. The July 1, 1926, report
showed a slight upturn in membership in the order in Louisiana, 9460, but
in April, 1927, the steady decline had shrunken the membership to 8065, a
decrease of 1348, the largest on record to that time. As Mr. Guste left
office in July, 1928, the membership report listed only 7874 Knights in
the state‑4752 associates, and 3122 insurance members.
The reason lay not in the order, because its fine
ideals and high purposes were always the same, and its activities and
projects for good causes were certainly not lacking, since there were many
that afforded any Catholic layman abundant opportunity to use his
generosity, his charity, his talents and his energies for worthy Catholic
purposes local, statewide and national. And be it said here, those who
remained steadfast and continued in the order certainly contributed most
generously and effectively of themselves and their substance to the order
and its manifold activities, besides to the projects and movements in
their home communities, such as church parishes, parochial schools,
Catholic parochial organizations and institutions.
In the May 1925 issue of The Columbian Messenger, Past
State Deputy John X. Wegmann, reviewing the advantages of membership,
the excellent club quarters available, the many activities, athletics,
dramatic and choral clubs, the Council band, the public speaking classes
and others, asked the pointed question: "Why is it that members do
not avail themselves of these opportunities by coming around occasionally
. . . to meet their brothers in fraternity? . . . That condition for some
reason has changed. Is it the automobile, the movies that have caused
this? Are people changing? Have we lost interest? What's wrong with this
picture?"
The answer was probably furnished in an article by
The Indiana Catholic, when, some time later, Col. P. H. Callahan of
Louisville, Ky., and Arthur Preuss, editor of the Fortnightly Review, St.
Louis, attacked the Knights of Columbus for having members who failed to
live up to the high standards of the order and claimed there was a
leakage. The Indiana Catholic paper took up the cudgel in defense:
"A society of the size of the Knights of
Columbus, and particularly a society of this type, will naturally have a
rise and fall in membership from time to time. One of the reasons is that
among Catholics as among other Americans, there is a waning of the
fraternal lodge craze. Men are not the `joiners' they used to be. We live
in the day of the automobile and picture shows. Ask any lodge member of
the big fraternal societies of the country about attendance and loss of
membership, and the answer will be given. The Knights of Pythias, once so
strong in the Mid‑West, has in 10 years lost half of its membership.
Masonic lodges in the country districts are consolidating and the same is
true in the big cities, in order to get proper attendance at meetings.
When the KC war work was on, there was a great rise in membership, because
of the enthusiasm of the times. It was to be expected that in the 10 years
following the war there would be some slump. And there has been; but it is
of a certain type of members that only came in temporarily. No society in
the whole history of the Catholic Church has done greater or more
effective work for the Church than the KC."
State Deputy Guste was naturally concerned over the
tendency that had set in for the membership to decrease, so he undertook
to visit each Council in the state, some of them more than once, to
investigate local conditions affecting the Council, to check upon
activities and attention to duties by the officers and to make certain
recommendations for improvement of the Council. He pointed out that the war
work and reconstruction
were over, and so were the six or seven years of intensive general
activity, hence there was now a return to normalcy, a stage of transition.
Results were to be sought not in numbers, but in progress.
Some of the Councils, Mr. Guste found, progressed
remarkably. He noted:
"More religious activity, improved meeting
places, more general social betterment in various communities, more
observance of patriotic holidays, more fraternal service activity, and a
greater bond of friendship between members . . . In those Councils where
the Grand Knight and his officers have functioned earnestly and zealously
in proper and reciprocal co‑ordination with the Church through the
Council's Chaplain, there has always been found the earmark of genuine
success." |
