Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/372

These have appeared in the “Rural Beekeeper”, “Beekeeper’s Review”, “The American Bee Journal”, and in the Annual Reports of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture for 1911 and 1913. To him bee culture is an ideal recreation. Since 1911 he has served three terms as President of the Nebraska State Beekeepers’ Association.

Monsignor Klein has a notable record of patriotic, educational and civic services. He was active during the World War. It has been his constant aim to inspire his compatriots and to urge them to become American citizens and to master the English language. But he also advises them to study that which is best in the mother tongue the traditions and fond memories of their forefathers and the history of their forebears. It was with glowing ardor that he furthered the Czechoslovak cause during the War.

He served as a director of the local chapter of the American Red Cross, and in 1919 and 1920 was member of the Nebraska State Directorate of the Junior Red Cross Peace Program for which he compiled the patriotic books used in the schools of Nebraska.

During the last seven years he has devoted his energy to his extensive parish, contributed articles to various periodicals, preached sermons at important gatherings and conducted missions and retreats, one of which he gave to the student body at St. Procopius College, Lisle, Ill.

There are many other instances illustrating Monsignor Klein’s fidelity to His Master, to his adopted country and its Flag. His extraordinary enthusiasm, energy and tenacity of purpose, often in face of grave obstacles, give abundant promise of great services to be rendered to the Church and to the great American Commonwealth in the years that are yet to come.

“The busiest man in Bucharest.” Thus an American reporter, visiting the Roumanian capital during the troubled time of the Great War, characterized Charles J. Vopicka, United States Minister to Roumania, Serbia and Bulgaria. And there was cause for this diligence, for at one time Mr. Vopicka was in charge of the affairs not only of his own country, but of Germany, Turkey, England, Russia, Italy, Serbia and Roumania. No wonder the “Near East” denominated him “The big blond alchemist whose compounding of good nature and shrewd American sense “worked small miracles”.

Mr. Vopicka, diplomat and financier, was born at Dolní Hbity, near Prague, Bohemia, November 3, 1867. He studied at Příbram and later at the Staroměstské Gymnasium in Prague. Here he supported himself by singing in the Church of the Monastery of Strahov. He completed his studies at the Českoslovanská Obchodní Akademie where he received a thorough practical business education.

In 1880, Mr. Vopicka came to the United States and became a naturalized American citizen. On his arrival in Chicago in 1881, he engaged in real estate and banking with Mr. Otto Kubin. The firm of Vopicka & Kubin prospered and Mr. Vopicka’s outstanding ability invited a succession of civic honors.

From 1894–97 Mr. Vopicka was a member of the Chicago Board of Education, and from 1902–04 of the Chicago Board of Local Improvements. In 1906 he became a member of the Chicago Charter Convention. Nor did these civic interests keep Mr. Vopicka from his business activities. During this period he was also a director in the Kaspar State Bank of Chicago and in the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association. He was one of the organizers, also, of the Atlas Brewing Company of Chicago, and later became the company’s president and manager.

On September 11, 1913, Mr. Vopicka was appointed U. S. Minister to Roumania, Serbia and Bulgaria. His work, exacting enough in time