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               Let's Go Out And Sell Freemasonry!

      (Reprinted by permission of the Philalethes Society)

     Now  if that title doesn't get your attention, I don't  know 
what will. Freemasonry should be sold with all the expertise  and 
all of the ability which we can bring to the sales effort.

     If you keep reading after those first two sentences, you are 
the  man I am looking for. I am not advocating that we should  go 
out  and sell Freemasonry to the general public. I  certainly  am 
not   proposing   that   we  continue   the   insipid   newspaper 
advertisements  which  I see far too many of in my own  state.  I 
don't  think that many of the brochures and the television  spots 
supposedly  informing the public of "what Freemasonry  really  is 
help us."

     Not  at all. What I suggest is that we sell  Freemasonry  to 
the people who really need to be sold on Freemasonry. Let's  sell 
Freemasonry to those who have been Freemasons for some thirty  or 
forty   years  and  have  never  bothered  to  learn  about   the 
Fraternity.  In Missouri, we used to call the "button Masons."  A 
friend  of  mine,  who shall be nameless, as it  might  hurt  him 
professionally, states: "How do you know yourself to be a Mason?" 
and  he answers with: "By all the pot-metal pins which I wear  on 
my lapel."

     We  don't  really need advertising. We don't  need  so  much 
press-agentry. What we need to do is sell Freemasonry to our  own 
members.  With  some  3,000,000  salesmen  out  working  for  the 
fraternity,  we  could be a working organization once  again.  We 
need to sell Masonry to our members and we need to educate  those 
members.

     Before  someone comes up with the brilliant  statement  that 
his  particular lodge has the entire membership already  sold  on 
Freemasonry, let me ask a few questions. How many lodges, in  the 
United  States,  can state that ten percent of  their  membership 
attend on a regular basis? How many members does your lodge  have 
that  haven't  attended  since they took the  third  degree?  How 
dedicated  can some person be who joins an order and never  takes 
the slightest interest in the working of that order?

     Am  I  proposing  that  all members  become  active  in  the 
ritualistic work of the Lodge? No, I am not. I am proposing  that 
each  and every member know enough about the fraternity  that  he 
can  intelligently discuss Freemasonry with anyone who might  ask 
him  about  the  order. I would think that  we  should  not  only 
educate and inspire our membership about Freemasonry but that  we 
should continue to communicate with our entire membership and see 
that this membership is kept informed about current  developments 
within the fraternity.
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     A man who knows nothing about the orders to which he belongs 
is  a  man who, through ignorancy and apathy,  casts  a  negative 
rather than a positive vote toward that survival of Freemasonry.
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