The strongest societies among the Croatians are the National Croatian
Society of 50,000 members, and the Croatian League of Illinois of
39,000 members, sometimes called the "New Society," which in spite of
its name is really a national organization.
The purpose of the National Croatian Society is set forth in its
constitution:
... to help people of the Croatian race residing in America,
in cases of distress, sickness, and death, to educate and
instruct them in the English language and in other studies to
fit them for the duties of life and citizenship with our
English-speaking people, to teach them and impress upon them
the importance and duty of being naturalized under the laws
of the United States, and of educating their children in the
public schools of the country; these purposes to be carried
out through the organization and establishment of a supreme
assembly and subordinate assemblies of the Croatian people
with schools and teachers.
Those eligible to become members are:
Croatians or other Slavs who speak and understand the
Croatian language, of all creeds excepting Jews. All between
the ages of sixteen and fifty may be admitted, provided they
are neither ill nor epileptic nor disabled, are not living in
concubinage, and have not been expelled from the national
society.
The structure of the society is quite elaborate, and the conditions of
admission and of membership, the organization and conduct of the
lodges, the relations among the lodges and between a lodge and the
national society, are all carefully specified in the constitution and
by-laws.
Lodges are often organized on a sex basis, and in a community in which
there is a lodge for men and a lodge for women, no one of one sex can
be admitted to the lodge organized for the other. There is no special
notice taken of women's interests in the structure of the national
society, but there are local women's lodges, and women constitute
about one tenth of the total membership.
The functions of these local lodges, aside from their official
relation to the national organization, as specified by the by-laws,
are:
... to assist those members who do not know how to read and
write (either an officer or member shall, at least once a
week, teach such members reading and writing); to establish
libraries for members and gradually supply the same with the
best and most necessary books; to hold entertainments with a
view to building up the lodge treasury and to provide for
brotherly talk and enjoyment.
The officers and members of some of the local lodges in Chicago have
endeavored to develop and extend the social and recreational features
of the lodges to meet what they believe to be one of the greatest
needs of their people, but the efforts have so far met with little
success.
Failure has been attributed to conditions found in the community and
to the altered circumstances of family life in America. It has been
difficult to find suitable meeting places, as Croatian people have no
halls of their own and do not feel at home in the neighborhood
recreation center. Any kind of recreational activity planned is, of
necessity, so different from that to which these men and women are
accustomed, that it does not interest them at once. Large families of
small children make it impossible for men and women to take their
recreation together, or for women to leave their homes at all except
for a very short time.
Leaders whom we have consulted feel, however, that it is only through
the development of such organizations within the group that Croatian
women can be drawn into any social or recreational activities in
considerable numbers; for, because they feel peculiarly strange and
ill at ease when with persons who are not of Croatian origin, they
lead secluded lives.
The important projects of the National Croatian Society have been the
raising of funds for the establishment in each large colony of a
national headquarters under the name Croatian Home, and for the
erection and maintenance of an invalid home. A "National Fund," into
which each member pays a cent a month, is created for the "culture and
enlightenment of Croatians." The orphan children of members of the
society are given the preference in the distribution of any benefit
paid from the national fund.