The record-union., 1893-05-15
IMPROVED ORDER OF RED MEN.
A Review Of It's History and Its
Mission.
Address Delivered on ST. Tammany's
Day at the Celebration in
san Francisco.

waua Tribes, Improved Order OF Red
Men, in San Francisco, Past Sachem j.
G. Hanks delivered the following elo-
quent address reviewing the origin and
history of the order, and explaining its
mission:
Mr.. Chairman, Brothers, Red Men, La
dies and Gentlemen: We are met here
upon this occasion to celebrate the annual
anniversary of the Improved Order OF
Red Men. 1t is my purpose to speak to
you of our order itself, to tell of its his
tory, and to make known its glorious
mission. To the Red Men around me l
can probably teach but little, but to those
who walk not i'll the forest, to the pale
faces who come from the haunts of civil
iZation, would reveal the objects of our
society.
Our name and our ceremonies are de-
rived from the aborigines of the Ameri-
can continent. In this way we endeavor
to perpetuate the memory of a mighty
and mysterious people who are fast pass
ing away. Great writers are ever tracing
upon the tablets of history the rise and
fall of the nations of the world, while the
temple of the muses. is crowded with their
statues. But the Indian race has no his
torian, and save in a few plaintlve notes
from the Tyre of some humble poet, its
deeds and its traditions are alike unsung.
The order of Red Men would wrestle
remains of the nobility and the poetry of
the Indian, letting charity bury beneath
the waters of oblivion the qualities that
mar his character; and so it is that our
symbols, our emblems, our legends and,
to a certain extent, our language, are the
same as those used by our prototypes.
Would you know the object and mis-
sion of our order? Would you know
why it is that 100000 men representing
different nationalities, different phases Of
society, different creeds and even differ
ent tongues, should be thus mysteriously
banded together? l answer by pointing
TO the device embroidered on our ban
ners-
FREEDOM, FRIEN DSHIP AND CHARITY"
The history of humanity reveals its
own imperiections. l am far from rails
ing the cry of the cynic, and pointing to
man as the image of his maker as a fail
ure. No! l thank the Great Spirit for
the good I find. L thank him for the in
destructibility and the immortality of
truth; but yet we cannot study the
history of human nature without study
ing also the history OF human error
Freedom, Friendship and Charity.
Freedom! All, the world brings with it
odes of the forest; it sounds like the
rushing of the cataract and the wild roar
ing of the wind. He who enters our wig
wan makes no surrender of liberty; his
faith, his opinions, his movements are as
unrestrained as ever. Freer, indeed; for
here we recognize not the arbitrary yet
necessary grades of the outer world
socialistic barriers are broken; birth,
education and wealth must yield the step
to native honor and true nobility OF soul,
and he is greatest among us, no mat
Ter how rugged the exterior, who is the
purest within, whose heart is the warmest
and whose love is the most catholic.
Friendship-ever silently and unosten-
tatiously at work among us. The shouts
and shrIeking OF the madly jostllng world
are not heard within our wigwams. The
strong, the rich, the weak, the poor, hand
in hand and heart in heart, stand in SER
ried ranks, and when the barbed strings
OF SANDER and the sharp-headed
ARROWS OF MISFORTUNE
Come they are blunted against the gilt
tering shields of friendship. Is a brother
in distress or in need? Friends bend
with sympathetic voice, watch over the
couch of the suffering, and when the
Great Spirit has called Red Man from
the forest his body sleeps in no union
ored and aforementioned grave, but with
loving hands Friendship herself carves
the monument and writes the epitaph.
But the greatest of all is charity
Charity, in the broadest Specification ofthe
word, Is our ruling characteristics; and we
mean by charity no abstract ideal person.
age, not merely a muse for the poet nor
theme for the philosophical philanthro-
pist, but an active, living principle. We
do not look upon her as proud. impas-
sive idol, sitting on throne demanding
our homage. No, we call her our servant.
God-winged, she is ever ready to do the
hearts bidding. We say unto her, go"
and she goeth; Come" and she cometh.
We send her forth, and her voice is heard
amidst the shouts and carnage of battle,
speaking peace. At our command she
wraps
HER BEAUTEoUS MANTLE
Around the erring, or swiftly mounts the
starlIt stair to lay upon the golden altar
brothers interceding prayers. We speak
and she haStens TO whisper words OF con-
ISOLATION, and to scatter sunbeams in the
house of atfliction; her hano raises the
cooling draught to tevered lips; her eyes
shed honest tears upon the lowly grave
and beneath her silvery wing she shelters
the orphan and the widow.
SUCH Is THE GLORIOUS MISSION
OF the Improved Order of Red Men. If
there are any here tonight who NAV
deem the picture have drawn Utopian,
or the sentiments [ have expressed QuiX-
otic, let them examine for themselves.
We do not claim to be perfect, but we
do claim that we lend helping hand to
imperfect humanity. God forbid that
should say that our society pretends in
any way to substitute, or rival religion, but
/ do say that, with maternal tenderness
she is ever teaching her children to re-
member that pure religion, and undefiled
before God and the father is this: to visit
the fatherless and the widow in their
ailliction, and to keep ourselves un-
spotted before the world.
THE NAME OF "RED MEN,
Originated in that charm that ever springs
from secrecy and mystery, and was as
sumed in compliment to the representa-
tive chiefs among the aborigines, who
were eminent for their virtues and friend
ship for the white race.
Conspicuous in this respect was Tam
many, who for his distinguished merit as
warrior and statesman, no less than for
his devoted friendship for the pale faces,
has been canonized as our patron saint,
and this, his natal day, has been chosen
and dedicated to anniversary festals.
We live in the iull blaze OF the respen-
dent light of the nineteenth century, the
interiors of its gorgeous bequest of
science, art and religion. Therefore our
obligation to humanity, to ourselves and
posterity as taught by the precepts of our
order, admOnishes us to increased vigil
lance and duty. The holders of the helm
oil human destiny has guided the bark of
humanity across the ocean of the past
into the harbor OF the future. Under di-
Vine ordinance civilization has ever
Travelled from the east TO the west.
We are OF this offspring. We stand
upon the verge OF the last scenes of man
kinds Advancement and to us is given
the golden lamp with which TO light all
the nations OF the earth in their march of
destiny. Tie throbblngs of
THE GREAT HEART OF MANKIND
For heavenly Iadiance-for brighter fields
OF action-ior quickening the spirit
toward holier, higher duties than man