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including any redistribution rights are reserved by the copyright holder.
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must be obtained from the copyright holder directly by contacting The
Philalethes, Nelson King, FPS, Editor, 2 Knockbolt Crescent, Agincourt
Ontario Canada, M1S 2P6. Tel: 416-293-8071 Fax: 416-293-8634 or
nking@freemasonry.org or nking@onramp.ca




Freemasonry and the Future

(Is There A Future For What We Call Freemasonry?)
by Jerry Marsengill, FPS

(The following paper was delivered by our late
lamented Editor at the Semi-Annual Meeting
of the Philalethes Society in 1989, while he was
serving as International President. The meet-
ing, which was hosted by the John Ross Robert-
son Chapter, was held in Toronto, Canada, on
September 23, 1989. The Proceedings were
published in a limited edition by the host Chap-
ter, but Jerry's words are still relevant, and
deserve a wider audience. They are presented
here as a tribute to his memory, with the per-
mission of John M. Boersma, MPS, the Presi-
dent of the John Ross Robertson Chapter.)

In a little more than eleven years we
will enter the 21st Century. In that year,
2001, Freemasonry, as we traditionally
believe, will be approximately 283 years
old. How much longer can we rea-
sonably expect the fraternity to last after
that point?

When I was initiated into Freema-
sonry, the institution had reached its
peak in membership. In Iowa -- not one
of the larger jurisdictions in the United
States -- we had more than 96,000 mem-
bers. The number of members, not only
in Iowa, but throughout the entire
country, has gradually dwindled until at
this time we have a little less than 46,000
members in our state. That is a loss of
more than 50% of the entire member-
ship in only thirty-one years. Think
about it. More than half of the organiza-
tion lost in thirty-one years!

This situation has not gone unnoticed.
Most of the Grand Lodges have at-
tempted to stop this erosion of member-
ship. Various studies have been made,
formulas tried, and attempts instituted,
to reverse this headlong rush to oblivion.
Nothing has helped to any great extent.
Although some scattered pockets of can-
didates are apparent, the overall trend is
continuing to be a bad loss of member-
ship. In my own experience, we have
attempted to lower the age of initiation.
It did not help. We are quartering the
number of questions for proficiency. It
will take a few years to evaluate this idea.
We have talked of dropping the penalties
from our ritual. I am personally con-
vinced that none of these is the answer.
We have tried advertising, both televi-
sion and print media. This was intended
to increase awareness of the fraternity.
We can't yet evaluate the long term effect
of this advertising.

I feel that most of the attempts made
throughout the Masonic world are at-
tempts to treat the symptoms while ig-
noring the root cause of the disease. We
are using modern marketing techniques
to promote a product which, by present
day standards, is nearly obsolete. We are
advertising a Model T Ford by methods
that should be used to sell a Porsche.

In my opinion, the problem that faces
the fraternity today is that we are not
relevant to present day society. Young
people, at this time, want to belong to
organizations with clearly defined goals
and objectives. They also want to be a
part of the organization, and perhaps to
play a major role in making the decisions
that govern the future of any organiza-
tion of which they are a part.

Some of the recent surveys state that the
best pool for potential Masons is men
from 35 to 50 years of age. For some
reason we are not attracting these men
as we should be. I am not qualified or
able to give any answer as to why these
men are not petitioning, but I do know
that they are not. I certainly can't speak
for a number of young men. I am far too
old for that; I am nearly sixty years old.
And before someone comes up with the
usual idea, "Oh, you're still a young
man, " let me say that if sixty years of age
is a young man, no hope of any kind
exists for the fraternity.

As Secretary of my own Lodge (of more
than 400 members), I have averaged the
age of membership. Our average age was
slightly more than sixty-eight years.
Think about that for just a minute. Sixty-
eight is the average age! It would take a
large number of younger men to drop
our age to any extent. Also, each of us
keeps getting older every year, and the
average gets higher. We need a large
influx of young men just to stay even
with the natural aging process.

I finally decided that I would go out and
interview a number of young men. I did
this. Some of them were members of the
fraternity, some were not. Others had, at
one time, been Masons, but for one or
another reason had dropped their mem-
bership. Almost all of them were happy
to talk to me, and to allow me to tape our
conversations. I asked a few questions,
but the main portion of the tapes was
merely the words of these men, telling
why they had not joined, or, if they had,
why they had turned their backs on the
fraternity. A few of them told how they
had joined, and what they had found in
the order. Unfortunately, those who
found little, and left the institution, far
outnumbered those who remained as
members .

This is not intended as any kind of
scientific study. My methods were
empirical and my presentation of the
findings is anecdotal. No attempt at
balance has been made, and no statistics
have been compiled. (Needless to say, a
scientific study should be made. A statis-
tical analysis of our order should be com-
piled. This should be done by some firm
which specializes in such studies. Al-
though the Masonic order should fund
such a study, and fund it liberally, no
Mason nor Masonic-related group
should have any part in performing such
a study. In this way, we might perhaps
get a picture of why the fraternity con-
tinues to shrink, and find some means by
which we can make the necessary
changes while there is yet time.) These
anecdotes are not arranged in any par-
ticular order. All of the names used are
fictitious. All of the instances related are,
unfortunately, true.

John joined the Masonic order twenty
years ago. His grandfather, his father
and his uncle were all Masons. As soon
as he was twenty-one he asked for a peti-
tion, filled it out, and within two months
he was raised. Being a college teacher, he
had little trouble with the rote memori-
zation. Seeing that the fraternity was
losing approximately 1,000 members a
year in the state, he attempted to use his
expertise to try to help stem that trend.
John says, "I noticed that the Grand
Lodge had a public relations committee.
Since I had a Ph.D. in Mass Com-
munications with an emphasis on
journalism, I thought that perhaps the
Grand Lodge could use my abilities. I
was teaching Public Relations at the
time, and had worked for one of the
larger practitioners in Chicago, and just
wanted to help. I went to the Grand
Master, introduced myself, spoke about
my background and education, and
asked him if he would be able to use me
somewhere in public relations. He
looked at me as if I were something that
had just crawled from under a rock and
said, 'We pick the people we want for our
committees.' I found that later he had
gone to all of the others in the Grand
Lodge line and told them not to use me
for anything, that I was just trying to get
something. I quit going to Lodge. I quit
trying to give any asslstance. I later
found that his public relations committee
consisted of a postal worker, a
policeman and one small-town news-
paper pubiisher. Why didn't he use me?
I don't know. I think I had something to
contribute, but we'll never know now. "

Dick was a Ph.D. candidate in the field
of history. His ambition was to study and
to write the history of Freemasonry in the
Midwest. When he approached the
Master of his Lodge with his ideas, the
Master informed him that, before he
could get active in any work of the
Lodge, he would first have to memorize
some ritual. The Master stated, "You'll
never get anything out of Masonry if you
don't take some part in the work. " Dick
told him that he had no ambition to
become a ritualist nor to be a Lodge
officer, he merely wanted to study and
write history. The Master stated that
there wasn't much place in the Lodge for
any man who didn't want to do part of
the work. According to this Master, the
only purpose for a Masonic Lodge was
to confer degrees, and anyone who didn't
confer degrees was useless to the frater-
nity. Dick still pays dues, still wears a
Masonic pin, but he never attends
Lodge. He has never studied nor written
any Masonic history. (In my own ex-
perience, this Master is not out of line
with a number of other Masons . They do
not understand that Freemasonry does
not begin and end with the ritual. As Bill
Stemper once said, "Freemasonry is the
only church where every member of the
congregation is expected to be a member
of the clergy.")

In one state they promoted a Masonic
booth at the state fair. The Lodge, the
York and Scottish Rites, and the Shrine,
were all involved. The Grand Master
appointed a brother to take charge of the
Lodge portion of the work. One of his
duties was to select the brethren who
would work in the booth. He chose most
of them from men of his own acquain-
tance. He was sixty-five years of age, and
so were most of his workers. When one
of the young Lodge officers from a neigh-
boring Lodge stated that he would like to
work in the booth, he was told that he
wasn't the type that the Lodge wanted to
represent Freemasonry before the pub-
lic. Three others were also curtly dis-
missed and informed that they weren't
needed. They now refer to each other as
second class Masons, but have resigned
their Lodge Offices and quit attending
the Lodges that showed them they were
not wanted.

Lou was elected Master of his Lodge.
After only five years as a member of the
fraternity, he was very proud to be al-
lowed to represent his Lodge at Grand
Lodge, and he looked forward to his first
trip there. He asked a few questions of
some of the Lodge officers, and of the
Grand officers. When he was questioned
about his impressions of Grand Lodge
he stated that most of the men in atten-
dance appeared to be nearly seventy
years old, and that the incoming Grand
Master was much older than that. He
asked how progressive thought could be
a part of an organization whose only
qualification appeared to be longevity.
He received a letter from the Grand
Secretary warning him about his opin-
ions. This was, more or less, a cease-and-
desist order.

Of course there are a number of
younger men who are favourably im-
pressed by our order. Jim is a young
lawyer, a Lodge officer, and a Grand
Lodge committeeman, at the age of
thirty-seven. His principal reason for
staying active in the fraternity is to as-
sociate with people that he would not
meet in his daily life. He says, 'Where
else can I be friends with a garbageman,
a postal worker, a policeman, some re-
tired railway workers, and a number of
college students? The fraternity's main
value is, so far as I can see, to give us an
opportunity to meet other people and get
to know them. "

Jack and Bill are both enthusiastic Ma-
sons. They joined the Lodge at the age
of twenty-one. They are raising families,
and have little time to spend in learning
ritua, or in sitting through business
meetings. When they do go to any Ma-
sonic function, it is usually a Scottish
Rite reunion or a Shrine party. However,
if their enthusiasm continues, they
should become Lodge officers as soon as
their children are grown.

Bob started out just like Jack and Bill
did. He was highly impressed with the
Masonic ceremonies, and especially with
the lessons of brotherhood he was taught.
He noticed, however, that his own Lodge
had no black members, and when he
tried to find out if the state had any, a
Past Grand Master informed him that
"They have their Lodges and we have
ours. We both stay in our places. " When
he talked in his own Lodge about it, one
of the members told him that we had it
in our code that Negroes couldn't join.
Fortunately, we found out about it, and
got to him before he quit the fraternity.
We introduced him to some black mem-
bers, and we told him that he would see
more of this in the future. He is still
disillusioned about the brotherhood we
swear, and the brotherhood we practice.

Is there a future for Freemasonry? I
don't know. I do know one thing. We
must become relevant to present-day
society. We must try to cure our illness,
not grab on to each miracle cure with
which some Masonic Moses tries to lead
us out of the wilderness. History is
replete with examples of organizations
that refused to change with the times.
The Redmen are gone. The knights of
Pythias are nearly gone. The Oddfellows
are rapidly dwindling.

It there a future for what we call
Freemasonry? There can be if we will try
to drag the fraternity into the present
day. If we do not, then we will be the last
of the dinosaurs, sinking into the
primeval ooze while our last haunting
cry echoes from the hilltops: "But we've
always done it that way!"

Philalethes, Feb. 1992

