The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1896-06-26
Five Million Americans in Fraternal
Orders

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Five Million Americans in Fraternal
Orders.
Ole of the most remarkable social fea-
lures of our time is the tremendous and
steadily increasing popularity of secret
benevolent and Insurance orders. There
are now over 5000, 900 men enrolled in this
country in such orders and they are report
ed to be annually discussing over $25, 900
900 in benefits.
The great mass of these fraternal organi.
cations is the creation of the last twenty
years. So important new factor in our
national life ought to be taken more partic-
ular account of in the next census. The
economic conditions of the country are but
imperfectly stated unless the work of these
fraternal orders and societies is taken into
the reckoning. The relative strength of the
leading orders of the present time is report
ed as follows: Odd Fellows, over 1000, 900
members; Freemasons of various lodges and
subdivisions, 500, 900; Knights of Pythias,
500, 900; Order of United Workmen, $780,
900; Knights of the Maccabees, 210,0OO;
Royal Arcanum, 100000; and after these
the Improved Order of Red Men, the United
Order of American Mechanics. the Knights
of Honor, the Foresters, the Knights of the
Golden Eagle, the American Legion of
Honor, and the Order of Chosen Friends,
with memberships averaging probably 1OO,-
600 each.
Many causes have helped along this won
derful growth of associations for mutual
help and cooperative life and health insur-
ance. The main cause, we think, is the
greatly increased sense of the necessity of
providing against the day of need and mis-
fortune which has come to the great body of
our people who live upon incomes or wages
that are dependent upon the uncertainties
of health or sickness, life or death. Five
millions of men would not have banded
themselves together just for the sake of the
social pleasures to be derived from lodge
and council meetings, and the incidental
fun provided by the merry limitations of
new members. The prudential in stinct is
becoming more acute, and that is the MAIN
! spring of this vast growth of secret societies.
Before the civil war there was no such
network of cooperative insurance covering
the land, because there was no need of it.
Individual independence was then the rule.
Separate homes, the majority of them owned
outright by the families living in them,
were also the rule. The number of en-
ployers was then much larger relatively to
! the number of employed. The wage-earn-
ing class could scarcely be said in those
days to be permanent one, except as to
the lowest grades of manual labor. The
young mechanic expected to be in business
for himself by the time he was thirty years
old, and he generally was, If he tried hard.
In those times, too, five hundred retail
stores of modest size carried on the business
that is now done by one, with the result
that there were 500 employers to perhaps
$500 wage-earners, where now there is one
employer to 1000 wage earners.
There are those who believe, and plausi-
bly, argue, that on the whole the new dispen-
sation is better than the old, and that the
more completely the individual citizen and
all his hopes of independence are swallowed
up by the extension Of the new regime of
corporations, trusts and syndicates, operat-
ing with vast aggregation of capital, directed
by handful of the very ablest business
men, each giving direction to many thous-
ands of wage-workers who may never hope
to be anything else, the cheaper everything
will become and the happier everybody will
be-. This is too large question to discuss
here. The fact remains that the new dis
pensation is here, and that one of its first
results, for good or evil, is that millions of
men feel that they are not able to stand, as
their fathers did, on their own feet, and
provide for the future of their own families
under the new, dependent and precarious
conditions that environ their life-struggle.
Hence the marvellous growth of secret soci.
cites, which guarantee benefits in case OF
sickness and lump sums to surviving faBi.
lies in case of death.
The total number of adult men living In
the United States is about IL, 000,0 900. Near
ly clean one half of them believe 1t to be
prudent to seek security for themselves and
their families in fraternal organizations. II
is stupendous fact, both in itself and Its
suggestions Frdterndl Netos.
Rheumatism Cured in Day.-'MystiC
Cure" for rheumatism and Neuralgia, rap
cally cures i'm 1 to 8 days. Its action upon
the system is remarkable and mysterious