Yugo.
May 9, 1942
Gary, Ind.
RE: Axis Propagandists within the
Croatian Cath. Union
At the meeting of the Board of Directors of the C.C.U., held in September, 1940, Mr. Kolendar, editor of "Our Hope" the C.C.U. Organ, presented a resolution which condemned the dictators and aggressors who started the war. The resolution called for a display of an American flag at the meetings of the Lodges. Rev. F.J. Cuturic, spiritual director, of the C.C.U. spoke against the resolution as being "politics". Rev. M.S. Hranilovich, chairman of the Board of Auditors, also spoke against it, stating that the introduction and mention of dictators is "offensive" to the heads of other governments, and asked that this be omitted, as the resolution is O.K. otherwise. He also added that "who knows what will happen within the next six months". (This was after the collapse of France). The president, George Rakic also agreed with them, that no offense should be given to the dictators. When Mr. Kolendar refused to have the resolution emasculated according to their sentiments, it was not passed.
Kolendar then remarked that he could not understand their attitude inasmuch, if they are American citizens and that he would be ashamed to express himself in this fashion. The minutes of the meeting of the Executive Board, held June 9, 1941, contain the following excerpts:
"Since Brother Editor has been repeatedly reminded to be cautious in writing about political questions and parties, and since various complints [sic] in connection with such writing are coming against him, therefor [sic], Brother Editor is hereby again and for the last time being admonished to be very cautious in writing about political questions and to avoid all political partisanship, because "Our Hope" is no political paper". This was a few weeks after Kolender published an article in "Our Hope" entitled, "An answer to a Hitlerite", in which Kolender condemned a Hitler's sympathizer for attaching Pres. Roosevelt. (The Hitler sympathizer is one Rev. F. Bakorich, of 610 No. Hill St., Los Angelos [sic], Calif.). Kolander also denounced Hitler and his stooges in American in another column of an issue before the meeting in question. The meeting did not question Kolander nor, did they name any articles as being what they termed "political". When Kolander asked the president, Rakic, to tell him which articles he deems political, so that Kolander may be governed in the future, Rakic refused to point any article. [sic] Sec. Ramuscak remarked to Rakic not to answer to Kolander anything "as he wants to trap you". Later on and recently, the same admonition ensued about the "political writing" when Kolender wrote articles on Hitler and his Axis, in true light. Kolander carried in translation most of Pres. Roosevelt's speeches during that time, giving prominence to his condemnation of Hitler. Again at the Sept., 1941, meeting, Rev. Cuturic stated, that Kolander was giving too much space to "propaganda", but when pressed for identification of such articles, Cuturic declined to identify said articles.
When the puppet government of Croatia declared war on the United States, Kolander wrote an article intitled [sic] "Let us wipe out this shame", and explained that the people of Croatia were Hitler's slaves and had nothing to do with this declaration of war, and that we should show our condemnation of this act by buying Defense Bonds and declare our loyalty to the United States in appropriate resolutions. Kolander also started publishing the names of Lodges and the amounts of Defense Bonds they bought and their donations to the Red Cross. Heading the list, was a condemnation of Ante Pavelic and his declaration of war upon the United States. This was during the last week of December and first two weeks of January, 1942.
On January 22, 1942, president Rakic called Kolander into the office of sec. Ramuscak. He also called treasurer Joseph Pavlic. Rakic held the issues of Our Hope in which appeared that article condemning Pavelic and his declaration of war and the list of Lodges with amounts of Defense Bonds bought. Rakic declared, that he had received several complaints on account of these statements against Pavelic and Independent State of Croatia. Kolander stated, that the condemnation concerns not the Croatian people, but Hitler's stooge, Pavelic, as anyone can plainly read. Rakic said that we must look out for the interest of the organization and asked Kolander to drop out of the Lodge list all reference to Pavelic. Sec. Ramuscak also denounced this reference to Pavelic and accused Kolander of enmity to the Croatian cause. Kolander had printed a resolution of Lodge #7, of McKeesport, Pa. condemning Pavelic and Hitler by name.
Since the by-laws provide that the president supervises the editing and publishing of the official organ, Kolander had to drop the reference to Pavelic from the Defence Bonds list and substitute a slogan for "Buy a share in America". On Feb. 10th, 1942, Rakic again reminded Kolander, that publishing articles against Pavelic was against the interests of the organization and not a proper thing to do.
These Hitler adherents are steadoly [sic] conniving how to get rid of Mr. Kolander as they are in terror in case he should denounce them to the U.S. authorities. Kolander might even be physically in danger in this respect.
SK/Y