Putnam patriot., 1919-05-16

der in Connecticut.
 Addresses were made by Father McGivney, William J. Mulligan, na- tional chairman of war activities, and by John W. Skully of South Norwalk, the first overseas secretary of the or der to go across. The keynote of each speaker was that members of the order should stand firmly behind the government and give it united support. That bolshevism was becom- ing menace and force to be reck- oned with, and it is the duty of every Knight to uphold law and order and the constitution of this great land.
 Father McGivney said that the country has been through four years that, particularly the last two, have tried mems hearts and souls. Our work, he said, has claimed the es- teem and appreciation of even those who are not of our faith. Before the war we were known only as a body of Catholic laymen, but now, through our members who have en- gagged in war work in this country and overseas, our fame has spread on the four winds of heaven. These work CTS with our armed forces, on land and sea, have upheld the Catholic young men in the service during time when the souls of men were sore ly tried We may indeed feel proud of the work they have accomplished. We may congratulate ourselves that we have sacrificed and that we have suffered, that good might come to our beloved country.
 You, gentlemen of this conven- tion, are the representatives of more than 50O,000 Catholics of Connecti- cut. As the result of our orders work during the war you stand pre- eminently best fitted to represent the great Catholic body of our state In the reconstruction period upon which we are entering. You stand most fully qualified to represent the Cath ollie church in spreading her teachings of obedience and respect to the gov ernment of our country.
 "You know full we'll of that spirit of disrespect and disobedience of gov ernment that is spreading throughout the world and is now seeking to cross the ocean to fix the plague of its com ing in this fertile field"
 During his address MT. Mulligan said:
 "The Knights of Columbus must be active as they never have been be- fore in an effort to raise three mil lion. We remembered that it had taken the order two years to complete fund of $500.000 for the Catholic University, and felt that attempting to raise ten million in the brief time we had at hand would be an impossl- ble undertaking We went out and went to work. Money began to roll in and in one year we had raised Sl4,- OOO, 900 for the service work we were carrying on Later we started out to get fifty million more, but the war de- partment cut us down to O,O00,00
 "What success we met with in rais- ing such tremendous sums was tes- timonial of what the people thought of our work. All was not smooth sal ing, however. either in the canton ments here or overseas. We had to fight on many occasions for what we got.
 "Eventually the war department took away our slogan Everybody Welcome, Everything Freev but 1t never deprived us of that privilege Overseas. when we were obliged to take down our Everything Free signs we substituted others that read Don't Thank Us; Thank the Folks Back Home If success has come to the K. of c. in it's war work, it IS be- cause the directors always kept Tn mind that they were only the trustees of the American people, not of our order or of Catholics, but of all of the people of the nation. Why have sol dier boy pay for something his rela- lives and friends back home already had paid for? Our success was based on the slogan Everything Free. We sent nearly 1,200 secretaries to France and each and every one of them went not with the idea that he was to be keeper of the soldiers but that he was to be servant of the sol diers.
 "When our brave soldiers made their smashes through the St Mlhiei sector and in the Argonne and at other sections of the western front, our gray-haired secretaries kept pace with the hurried advance, nor were they burdened with bookkeeping out fits. At Coblenz before an American soldier had entered our zone of occu- patton the Knights of Columbus had a community house opened and ready to receive Uncle Sam's boys the min ute they arrived. Our huts were