Apathy on Lodge Night

Founded and operated for a seemingly infinite variety of reasons, ranging from royal good fellowship, to mutual financial benefit (low-cost insurance), to generously financed works of public good will,/- the nation's 248 major fraternal orders (125,861 local chapters) have shared as never before in the golden bounty of U.S. prosperity. Since 1947, overall membership in the Masonic order, biggest U.S. fraternity, has climbed 10% to 4,000,000; the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, second largest, reports a husky 25% gain in new dues-paying brethren to a total of 1,200,000. From Calais, Me. to Elsinore, Calif., more than 20 million U.S. males are entitled to participate in the mysteries and handclasps of one lodge or more. Estimated total assets of all the orders, including hundreds of plush new lodge halls: a thunderous $10 billion, more than the combined assets of General Motors and General Electric.

Funerals & Prizefights. Even as they burn their mortgages, contribute heavily to charities and tend their investments,, lodge officials have bumped up against a discouraging fact of 1957: the old prestige and royal good fellowship just aren't there any more. Evidence: fewer than 15% of the nation's joiners, whether Odd Fellows. Shriners, Eagles or Woodmen, bother to show up for lodge meetings, except on rare special occasions, e.g., a New Year's Eve party. Explains a once-earnest, now-backsliding Chicago businessman-joiner (Masons, Maccabees, Woodmen of the World): "I know I should attend. But all of a sudden, on a lodge night, I realize I haven't been home with the family for three nights running. Then there'll be a damn good prizefight on TV. You know what loses out."* From the Elks to the Moose, fraternal leaders blame home TV, the automobile, the country club for the new apathy among the brethren. "The young people want something a little faster," admits Odd Fellow Edward McCarty of Lamed, Kans. (pop. 4,447). The lodge has lost its old appeal of exclusiveness and its local VIP leaders, e.g., the town bankers. Says a Missouri Mason: "Men just won't go out to see their mailman drone through a meeting." Even members' funerals, once a must for most orders, get scant attendance. Commented one Knights of Pythias bigwig in Birmingham: "The brothers just don't have the whole spirit."

Martinis & Stardust. To combat the downward trend, many U.S. lodges are hopefully evolving into family-style social clubs, adding TV, air conditioning, bowling alleys, restaurants. Says an Atlanta Eagle: "Our best weapons are bingo, dancing, and a good bar." In San Mateo, Calif., the Elks boosted attendance from 40% to 70% of enrolled membership by installing a swimming pool. In bone-dry Princeton, Ky. (pop. 5,388), one lodge makes its slot machines and beer parlor a drawing card. The Knights of Columbus' San Salvador Council No. 1 in New Haven, Conn, holds "National Nights," when it serves up Irish, Italian or Polish dinners. But the new devices have yet to boost attendance at solemn, often boring business meetings. Says one Boise (Idaho) Moose: "We have lots of social members, very few real brothers." Says a Seymour (Ind.) Elk: "The Elks' bar serves the crispest martini in town, but I don't attend meetings because I'm afraid they might try to make me an officer."

Deciding that gimmicks are not enough, white-thatched, big-time Mason Frank S. Land, 67, of Kansas City, Mo., former Imperial Potentate of the Shrine for North America, who founded Masonry's Order of DeMolay, last week announced a new experimental drive to restore the prestige of the nation's biggest fraternal order. Next month Land will launch a new bellwether Masonic echelon: the Ancient and Honorable Guild of the Leather Apron, with faithful attendance at Masonic affairs a prime membership qualification. First among his prospective apron wearers: Missouri's U.S. Senator Stuart Symington, Kansas Tycoon Harry Darby, ex-President Harry Truman. Such VIPs, duly enlisted, hopes Booster Land, will constitute "a band of leaders, men with Stardust on them, who will bring back the rank and file to the lodges."

But in Grand Junction, Colo., the newsletter of the Mason's Local Mesa Lodge No. 55 dealt with the problem head-on in a poignant little verse:

Say, son, let's go to lodge tonight. We

haven't been for years. Let's don our little aprons white and

sit among the peers. I want to hear the gavel ring, to hear

the organ play . . . Pass up bridge or picture show, your

wrestling bout or fight Switch off that darned old radio; let's

go to lodge tonight.

/- Examples: the Shriners maintain 17 hospitals for crippled children; the Knights of Columbus donate $1,000,000 a year to charities; the Loyal Order of Moose operates a campus-style home for 800 needy offspring of deceased members.

*While the night-meeting fraternal orders languish, the civic-minded lunching clubs, e.g., Kiwanis (membership: 250,000), Rotary (450,000) and Lions (564,000) are booming. Explains one Kansas City Kiwanian: "It's the new release valve. At a Kiwanis lunch, a man can find relief from business thinking for an hour or two during a hectic day."

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