FACES AND PLACES: "Together we will" (02/03/02)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

"Together we will"

As most good UNA'ers know, the next quadrennial convention of the Ukrainian National Association will be held in Chicago on May 24 through 28 at the Marriott O'Hare Hotel.

The local convention committee has been preparing for this important conclave, working with the UNA Home Office, as well as the Chicago Convention Bureau, to make this the best UNA convention ever.

This is only the second time in 108 years that a UNA convention is being held in Chicago. To mark the occasion the Chicago convention committee has adopted the slogan "Together We Will," a modification of the motto of the City of Chicago, "I Will."

The reader might well ask, "will what? Although the answer is simple enough - "we will turn the UNA around" - doing that is not. It's no secret that the UNA, like almost every other fraternal benefit society in the United States, has declined in recent years. So has practically every other Ukrainian institution, including our mainline Churches. Only our federal credit unions appear to be thriving.

The most momentous question that UNA delegates will need to address in May will be "how?" How do we turn things around? Much is at stake. The future of Soyuzivka, The Ukrainian Weekly and Svoboda depend on the answer. Without the UNA, these three community-wide institutions will probably disappear.

Of special interest have been the written reports of the younger members of the UNA General Assembly as presented at our meeting last December. Taras G. Szmagala Jr., for example, believes that the "underlying issue of our association - "why be a member" - has gone unaddressed and there is no indication of that changing in the future."

Echoing Mr. Szmagala's sentiments was Dr. Wasyl Szeremta, who wrote: "For the UNA to survive, we need to decide what business we are running. Are we an insurance company? Are we a resort provider? Are we a publisher? Are we a multi-facted organization with separate subsidiaries? It is clear from the financial reports that we cannot do everything as a principal business."

Mr. Szmagala expressed disappointment that the UNA delegates did not vote to change the structure of the UNA from its present form to a corporate structure in which the convention elects a board of directors which, in turn, has the power to hire (and fire) the working executive. Mr. Szmagala worked long and hard on fine-tuning this proposal, so his letdown is understandable. The proposal was defeated in a mail-in ballot because two-thirds of the delegates did not approve the by-laws change.

Why was the proposal defeated? Stefko Kuropas argued that the pros and cons of the idea were never adequately presented to the delegates. "I believe," he wrote, "that most delegates would agree that the mail-in ballot is not something that is well-suited for the our organization." Al Kachkowski seemed to agree. "It is normal that such a major step be approached with a degree of caution by delegates, especially when they do not have an opportunity to hear the proposal presented and debated on a convention floor. It is my hope that our next convention will make room for such debate."

UNA conventions are important decision-making bodies. In researching the history of the UNA, I discovered that there was a time when all UNA members, not just executives, assembly members and delegates could freely voice their opinions and have them published in Svoboda. The precedent was set prior to the 1914 UNA convention. The discussion on the pages of Svoboda began on July 2 and ended on September 5 with a total of 138 individuals participating.

What amazed me was that some recommendations are being echoed today - some 85 years later. The August 4, 1917, issue of Svoboda, for example, published a letter from Father Dmytro Khomiak demanding that the entire UNA membership receive all convention reports prior to the elections of delegates so that they would be "familiar with the way the organization was mangaged during the past three years. Only in this way can delegates decide if supreme executives are worthy of further support". On August 30, Ivan Kashtaniuk complained that local UNA branches were no longer viewed as important by UNA national executives. That same year Gregory Geba wrote that the UNA shouldn't belong to any political organization "because it creates real problems in the organizing of new members."

In a September 11, 1920, Svoboda proposal titled "Stop, Look and Listen," the venerable Father Volodymyr Spolitakewycz wrote: "In order for the UN Soyuz convention to be life-giving and beneficial, we must not be narrow-minded, one-sided or selfish, wishing only that 'good' which we believe is good. Our goal must be the organizational good, a good that is apparent to all delegates and members of the UN Soyuz... The convention of the UNA is not a political gathering, a party meeting, or a religious synod, and for that reason there is no room for political, party or religious fights."

Following heated discussions, delegates to the 1925 UNA convention voted to curtail recommendations from individual UNA members. In the future only those proposals which were approved during a UNA branch meeting would be published in Svoboda. This was amended by the 1970 UNA convention, which ruled that only proposals approved at district committee meetings would be published.

Even this was too much for some UNA executives. On May 1, 1974, Svoboda promulgated the following dictate: "Paragraph 17 of the UNA By-Laws defines the duties of various convention committees. The By-Laws Committee is obligated to review all pre-convention recommendations for the development and well-being of Soyuz which are made by branches after they have been approved or amended by the supreme executive which then proposes a course of action to be taken by the convention. There is nothing in the By-Laws that obligates the publication of these recommendations in Svoboda, the official organ of the UNA. Inasmuch as the publication of such recommendations has become part of our tradition, however, Svoboda will continue to publish them, but only in the form in which they are received from the Supreme Executive."

For 60 years recommendations from the UNA membership were published freely in the UNA press. This fraternal and democratic practice was quashed in 1974. I don't believe it is mere coincidence that that same year the UNA began a decline that continues until today.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: mbkuropas@compuserve.com.

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