Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1900-09-07
OUR NOBLE; ORDER"
Oregonian.

Underlying all the fuss and feathers,
mirthmaking and money. making of
the Street Carnival, is the secret soci-
ETY. under whose auspices it is held.
The rise OF the Elks to power and in
fuence in the Nations social life is
unique among orders, for it was nat
ural growth from an unconscious be-
ginning. Nobody ever founded a ma
tional and international benevolent
order of Elks. 1t grew OF itself. 1t
sprang up from lowly beginnings to
meet demand in the social realm.
1t made its own place in a world al
ready crowded with benevolent and
cooperative associations, open and Sc
cret. Charley Vivian's little band OF
jolly actors in New York City has
been widened out perforce to take in a
world OF good fellows.
The revivalist is fond OF saying that
the lodge has taken the place of the
church for many men, partly owing to
lack of social cheer in the churches
and partly because the discipline the
careless encounter in the church, with
its restrictions and peremptory re-
minders Of duty, sends them away to
more congenial haunts. In this there
is great deal OF truth. Social crav-
ings find in the lodgeroom the satis-
faction that the church is very apt to
deny. The void is more completely
filled in the case of secret orders whose
controlling scheme, ritual, ETC., par
take greatly of a religious character.
This is pre-eminently true of that
greatest of all orders, Masonry. No
man can enter the Masonic lodgeroom
without having borne in upon him a
sense of the Infinite, without having
reused within him feeling of humil-
ity, without taking on some added i'm
petus of right thinking and right liv-
ing.
1t is striking testimony to the
soundness of our National life, and the
universal conviction of truth and
goodness, that this ethical purpose, so
signally revealed in Masonry, informs
almost the whole body of secret soci.
ETY. framework and literature. The
novitiate is constantly adjured on the
duty of justice, charity, fidelity, etc.
Under all the trumpery and vain show
OF pompous ceremony is the moral if
not religious tenet of the order. |
This is the impressive fact about all
the orders, and their diferentations
become a secondary. perhaps a profit
less, study. In their ideas we distin-
guish tho Mason's love of knowledge
from the Odd Fellows cooperative
care in time of sickness and need. the
Pythian's passion for fidelity" the
Workman's devotion to "charity," the
Elk's idealization of good.fellowship.
and the insurance protection that
builds up the numberless bodies of
minor benevolent" orders. Each
has its peculiar field of symbolism
the Mason his vocabulary of the plane
and trowel, the Odd Fellow his links,
the Knight his waving plume and
flashing sword, the Red Man his
dream OF savage virility, the Wood
man his Ak and the Elks their inevit-
able stage and persistent relics of their
theatrical origin.
Let us say that the joining habit is
a weakness, and that fondness for the
lodgeroom is craze. Very we'll, of
just such weaknesses and crazes is life
made up. One man spends a hard
days toll to land fish he could buy
in the market for few cents; another
collects with infinite labor manuscript
copies of works he can read far more
understandingly in printed and anno-
tated form. One has passion for
dogs, another for Indian relics, an
other for orchids, another for some
peculiar article of dress. The man
who abuses fraternity and boots at
benevolence" may rob the widow
and the fatherless when he is not
watched, and make his home hell on
earth to wife and children. Every
man has his superstition, and so every
man has his weakness. Perhaps it is
his club, perhaps his lodge, perhaps
his rose garden, perhaps it is to play
bear with his 3year-old upon the nur-
sery floor. Then there are the defect
i've lives that crave some solace for the
unsatisfied desire. Virgin mothers
who can never know the pressure of
baby lips will have their cats and par
rots. The man without home must
find one somewhere. There are many
worse places for him than the lodge.
room.
IT ia DleaSant In see a President act