The two books reviewed in this month's column are about as far from each other in time, style, intent, subject, and audience as it is possible to be, yet both make very interesting reading.
From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967 by David T. Beito, University of North Carolina Press, 2000, 320 pages. Hardcover $55.00, Softcover $24.95. Order from www.uncpress.unc.edu, call (800) 848–6224, or fax (800) 272–6817.
This is one of the latest of several studies in which serious academics from various disciplines have turned their attention to Free-masonry and related organizations. While the book is not about Freemasonry (it is about the history of the development of social services in America), Freemasonry plays an important part in the text, as it does in American history. It is hard for most Masons under the age of 70 to believe, but there was a time in America, in living memory, when not only were there no Social Security and Medicare programs but there was also no unemployment insurance, no disability income, and nothing in the way of a government-supported safety net to help those in need. If you were injured on the job, your family would starve unless you and they begged for bread in the streets or were given support by some private charity or church. If there were layoffs, income stopped. When you were too old to work, there was no income, unless you had managed to save a little yourself, and with most people living at a subsistence level, there was little saving possible.
Freemasonry and several other fraternal orders—including the Moose, the Elks, and the Eagles—came into their own during this period. Some offered life insurance, some offered a kind of pre-paid medical services ("Lodge practice" it was called), others offered help finding jobs, and almost all promised that, if something happened to the man, his wife and children would not be allowed to go hungry. Remote as that possibility may seem to most of us today, it was a real concern for our Brethren only a couple of generations ago. Histories of Freemasonry seldom spend much time on the economic background of the Fraternity in America. This book, while not written for the purpose, does a good job of filling that gap. For those interested in the social history of America or the history of American Masonry, this is a good book.
Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part: A Collection of Masonic
Poems and Inspirational Fraternal Thoughts
edited by Stephen Dafoe, Templar Books, 1999 softbound, 84 pages,
$5.95 plus $3 S&H per copy in USA and $5 elsewhere. Order
from www.templarbooks.com
or call (613) 966–1107
It would be harder to imagine a stronger contrast. The first book comes from the turn of the 21st Century, this book from the turn of the 20th Century. The first book is hard-edged scholarship; this book deals with human emotions and the feeling of fraternalism. Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part dives headfirst into sentimentality unabashed. In contrast, the first book, while it deals with the impulses which arose from feelings of compassion and charity, is itself about as sentimental as one of Brother Gillette's razors. We need both the "warm fuzzy" and the "hard-edged" in Masonry, and pity the man whose soul doesn't contain a little of each.
Brother Dafoe's little book contains excerpts from many well-known
authors and a really surprising number of works whose authors
are unknown. You'll find poems by, among others, Rob Morris, Rudyard
Kipling, Robert Burns, and Albert Pike. Regarding Pike, his best-known
poem, "Every Year," is included, but I wish some of
Pike's lighter material had been included as well. Also, the book
has representative portions from such famous Masonic authors as
Carl Claudy and the Rev. Joseph Fort Newton. These are old friends
for many of us, but for newer Masons, this book is a great opportunity
to see what members, recognized as well as anonymous, of our Craft
have been able to do when they set out to inspire.
 |
Jim Tresner is Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute and Editor of The Oklahoma Mason. A frequent contributor to the Scottish Rite Journal and its book review editor, Illustrious Brother Tresner is also a volunteer writer for The Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason and a video script consultant for the National Masonic Renewal Committee. He is the Director of the Thirty-third Degree Conferral Team and Director of Work at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as well as a life member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, author of the popular anecdotal biography Albert Pike, The Man Beyond the Monument, and a member of the steering committee of the Masonic Information Center. Ill. Tresner was awarded the Grand Cross, the Scottish Rite's highest honor, during the Supreme Council's October 1997 Biennial Session. |