The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 7 - Rituals 581
Various reasons may be assigned to account for this fact. We are a free
people and men may unite with any lodge to which they can gain
admission and may make a new lodge if they cannot enter one already
formed. We have more money among the people than any other nation.
Others may have had as much wealth as we, but in no nation was it ever
so widely distributed. We have more leisure than the inhabitants of
other countries. The hours of toil being shorter, the right of assembly
unlimited, the instinct for companionship being strong, it is natural that
men should organize and the same love of power and religious
tendencies which caused the mysteries, operating freely upon larger
masses of men have developed the more numerous secret orders of our
time. 1527
The reasons for the popularity of fraternities in the United States in the late
19 th century are mainly economic. After the Civil War, the United States
underwent fundamental economic changes, brought about by the building of
railroads which created the potential for national markets, and by the creation of
factories to satisfy those markets. This led to growing urbanism; people moved
away from their farms or were losing them to satisfy their loans. The only
financial security in those times were the Fraternal Benefit Societies, which
sprung up all over and could boast growing membership. Their character
distinguishes them from Freemasonry:
Masonry is not per se, a benevolent organization. It was not formed for
the purpose of mutual relief from pecuniary distress, and its finances are
neither gathered nor managed with that end in view. For those who wish
fraternal insurance, a sick benefit organization, or a fraternal provision
for old age, there are many orders, run with wisdom and excellent in
execution. 1528
In the following chapters, two benefit organizations will be analyzed, the
Security Benefit Association of Topeka, Kansas, and the Modern Woodmen of
America.
The exclusiveness of these societies was ensured by initiation rites, secret
signs and passwords. Such rituals, using abbreviated or even mock initiation
ceremonies, were worked out in several trades, and existed during the beginning
of the industrial revolution. Charles Dickens satirized them in Barnaby Rudge.
What were the motives that spurred people to join such fraternities? It could not
have been the search for knowledge or "Divine Truth," spiritual values offered
by Freemasonry. So what lured the applicants? On the one hand, if their
motivations were not mere curiosity or the wish to belong to a certain elite or
popular group, there was the desire to be insured and supported, but on the other
hand, there were also psychological reasons for the crowds of people joining
1527 Ibid, p. 14.
1528 Claudy, A Master's Wages, p. 73.