Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
the $50,000. Within a year, Supreme Knight Hearn, smilingly presented Cardinal Gibbons, Chancellor of the Catholic University of America in Washington, then a struggling institution of learning that was keeping up the age-old traditions of Culture of the Church, a check in the amount of $53,042. I I. The Chair of American History as suggested had been endowed; the first large-scale effort in behalf of Catholic Education un- dertaken by the Knights of Columbus had met with success. The heir- archy and members of the Church lauded the unparalleled accomplish- ment. The surplus over the $50,000 goal originally set was devoted to the purchase of books for the library of the University. The great center of Catholic Education, the Catholic University of America, faced its first serious crisis in 1907. The Trustees wondered how the Catholic institution could be kept in operation. The means for its support were meager indeed. Archbishop Glennon of St. Louis suggested that the case be presented to the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus, in whom the future Cardinal had implicit confidence. The need was far greater than that presented before for a Chair of American History. Cardinal Gibbons appointed a committee of three: Archbishop Glennon, the Archbishop of Dubuque, and the Archbishop of Milwaukee to ask the Supreme Council of the Order if it could raise $500,000, an amount then considered "immense and stupendous" as Hollywood would say today. It had to be raised within a period of five years. In the historic cradle of America, Jamestown, Virginia, originally founded in 1607, the stately and eloquent Archbishop of St. Louis, in forceful and moving words presented the case to the Supreme Convention in the fall of 1908. Without hesitation, the unflinching Knights of Columbus heard the challenge and unanimously voted to accept it. By the fall of 1913 the money had been raised. Supreme Knight Flaherty proudly presented to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons at his residence in. Baltimore, on January 6, 1914, a check for $500,000. Deeply moved by this knightly action, the Cardinal, in accepting the donation, said "the Knights of Columbus take their place this day in the foremost ranks of the benefactors of humanity." The Trustees of the Catholic University, mindful of the gift, gave the Order in perpetuity a total of fifty scholarships, each valued at $10,000. The Knights of Columbus were likewise given the privilege to choose the beneficiaries of these scholarships. Twice the financial challenge had been met successfully on behalf of Catholic education. A third but different challenge came out of the West
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