The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1907-03-14
The Shriners Pilgrimage
to the Sea Next Month

Los Angeles, CAL. March 14.--In the
month of April vast army of Shriners
will be turning TO the setting sun and
pursuing their devious way through
the desert, very much after the manner
of Hugh de Paynes. Count de Molay,
Guy of Normandy, the knights of st.
John and the knights of Malta towards
the holy land exactly nine centuries
ago. These Shriners will view another
Palestine, similar in many respects to
that upon which the eagle eyes of the
Crusaders gazed; they will see the rug
ged, treeless mountains, the intermina-
BILE sand covered plains, with mesquite
and cacti struggling for existence; they
will, however, miss the white robed
Arabs leading camels, the Taurags or
warriors of the desert, for the Ameri-
can deserts are too desolate for any
kind of wild men; they will miss the
date fields or plantations twelve miles
square, and instead Of the ancient and
valued fig of Smyrna they will masti-
cate the bastard fig of California; they
will, however, see the ostriches on both
sides of the railway, as in the vicinity
of ancient towns of old Palestine. 1t
will be a great journey, full of incl
dent, and they will arrive in California
covered with dust and refreshed with
zim Zim and camel's milk, which they
will carry along in the bouffet Afri-
cans they will take along, but they will
be Pullman palace car porters ever on
the lookout for backsheesh, same as
their African ancestors. AS they enter
into the San Gabriel valley represen-
tatives of boards of trade and chamber
of commerce will greet them with a
glad hand and offer them fruit free, for
this is part of the programme of So
cieties advertising California The only
fruit they will get free will be at this
point; the balance will be dollar a
dozen.
Already great preparations are being
made to receive the faithful; entertain
ments projected; bands hired; recep-
ton committees appointed; refractory
and avaricious hotel proprietors have
first been pleaded with and then
threatened, the consequence whereof
has been a reduction of rates for the
visiting brothers. An immense build
ing four miles from the center of the
city is to be dedicated to the uses of
the Shriners and for other people who
wish to use it temporarily by placing
simoleons in the Masonic treasury. A
Fiesta celebration with electrically
lighted cars and floats is to be inaugu-
rated in which the visitors are to par
ticipate and the streets are to be one
mass of golden glory bordered by hur-
raining multitudes who will cheer the
procession as it passes along.
After the procession the Shriners
will seek to see all that is worth seeing
in this new Palestine, wherein Los AM
geles is the center spot of western Je-
rusalem. Trips will be made to the
old missions that stand like sentinels a
days march from each other awaiting
the effect of few more earthquakes;
old monks in cowls and prehistoric
raiment will guide the fraters about
showing them things that came down
from the time when ecclasiasticism
and corruption ruled the land and
when the natives worked from one
years end to another for a clean shirt.
Those were halcyon days, before hu-
man progress became accelerated and
Masons multiplied The vesper bells
rang out at eve, summoning the hosts
of dusky Iaborers from their toll in the
fields to participate in the boiled horse
feed that awaited them cooked in the
mission kitchen. The very kitchen boil
ers can be seen; and the cages or Gagged
rooms that kept the squaws from the
admiring bucks on the ground floor un-
til the permission of the good fathers
could be obtained for marriages and
he of clio f,.s
church. Quite interesting are these old
ruins, few of them in use and most of