Nebraska State Council Proceedings Knights of Columbus 1905-1926

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DEDICATION

     To TIMOTHY J. MAHONEY, Territorial Deputy and First State Deputy of the Nebraska State Council of the Knights of Columbus, and CONSTANTINE J. SMYTH, Second State Deputy, and Nebraska's first representative on the Supreme Board of Directors of our Order, this book is affectionately dedicated.

     They were the first official representatives of Columbianism in this State, and, though their temporal race is run, their spirits still live among the membership in Nebraska. They, with their early associates, were the pioneer Knights of Columbus west of the Missouri River, and by their zeal, their unselfishness, their wise administration, they builded on an enduring foundation the frame-work which supports the structure of the Order's existence in this territory.

     Today the great force of Catholic manhood, represented by the eleven thousand men who make up the membership of our forty-one Councils, is their monument, and in the pages which follow will be found the intimate story of progress and achievement which they inaugurated, and which has been at all times sustained and accelerated by the force of their early example.

     They were men of high ideals; of energy; of courage; of achievement. They rose to a high position in their profession, in the Order, in their communities, and in the esteem of all men.

     No shadow clouds the record of their public or private lives, no act of theirs has ever made a Brother blush, or a Catholic hang his head. Their memories are at once a benediction and an inspiration, and as a testimonial of our regard for them, and in some measure to perpetuate their memories, herein are preserved the accounts of the State Council Meetings over which they presided, as well as those of succeeding years, wherein, although not present, they at all times exercised a noteworthy influence.

Dated January 1st, 1925.