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

674
Chapter 8 - Categorization of Rituals
the author's analysis of the efficiency of Insurance Lodges. He names a few of
those who were active then, e.g. "The Golden Lion," "The Iron Hall," "The
Foresters," "The Home Forum."
One of the crying evils of our time is that men live out their income
each day and have no reserve for investment or a time of trial. The
result of this imprudence is that multitudes who might accumulate a
competence never do so and that other multitudes come to actual want.
As a protection against such a tragedy some sort of life insurance might
be justified, but it were a thousandfold better that men should save and
invest than that they should be compelled to get sick or die in order to
secure a part or the whole of their savings. I knew a man who received a
good salary, had only two in his family, and yet belonged to several of
these insurance orders. When, after fifteen years he lost a position,
before he had been out a month he had applied to two of the lodges for
relief. For some reason he shortly after drank carbolic acid and died. 1645
This statement raises strong doubts as to the efficiency of fraternal insurance
companies. Even the membership in several of them was of no help to the poor
man mentioned above. Of course, we have to keep in mind that the Christian
writer of this evaluation is an enemy of fraternal organizations and therefore does
not argue objectively. However, he is not the only contemporary who advises
against said organizations. Ezra A. Cook, the publisher of the exposés
Freemasonry Illustrated (copyrighted 1904) and Revised Oddfellowship
Illustrated (1888) expresses the same thought with regard to Odd Fellowship,
several comments being on the failure of the I.O.O.F. to be a good benefit
association:
That there is no benevolence in the payment of the benefits of the order
is further shown by two brief quotations from [...] Grosh's Manual:
'That we require the poorest applicant to contribute as much as the
wealthiest, is true.' 'We pay the rich member, when sick, the same
amount per week that we pay to our poorer brethren.' This ought to
forever settle the question of the 'benevolence' of the order. 1646
Revised OddfellowshipIllustrated also mentions the social injustice that
benefits were only paid in Odd Fellowship when the brother was in good
standing, that is when he had paid his dues regularly. Sometimes, there might
have been the case that a member failed to pay the dues before his sudden death,
and therefore, his funeral was refused by the fraternity: "Those men may have
paid dues regularly for twenty-five or thirty years, and drawn out nothing; but
dying five cents in debt, after paying hundreds of dollars, would deprive them of
1645 Blanchard, p. 184.
1646 Cook (publ.), Revised Oddfellowship Illustrated, p. 34.