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Where Did It Go Wrong?

(And What We Can Do About It?)
by Pete Martinez, MPS

I am going to give my opinion of what
is wrong with today's Masonry and what
caused it to be this way. I am going to
offer some solutions and state how I
think it will all work out. You will prob-
ably not like some, or all, of what I am
going to say. As with all Masonic writers,
the opinions are my own and are not to
be taken as a pronouncement from, or
endorsement by, any organized Masonic
body. I have arrived at these conclusions
and opinions by study, by reading Ma-
sonic articles and books, by twenty-two
years of personal experience, and by lis-
tening to many well-known and knowl-
edgeable Masonic leaders, scholars and
speakers and discussing problems with
them.

Let me start with the topic of religion.
Many Masons I know seem to think the
fraternity is a Christian organization. If
it were, we would be preaching, baptiz-
ing, saving souls, and doing all the other
activities associated with our Christian
churches. We would not say that Free-
masonry is the handmaiden of the
church because we would be a church.
We would have a doctrine, our ritual
probably would be different and we
would have a plan of salvation. Then our
critics would have less to talk about in
some areas and more in others. In fact,
they probably would be devoting their
lives to other organizations and be leav-
ing us alone.

The most obvious Christian thing done
in our lodges is the way some Masons
close prayers in the lodge. Using a Chris-
tian ending is not proper, but they use it
anyway because they think they must, or
they just do not realize it is improper.
The prayers in any jurisdictions's man-
ual of the lodge or monitor do not close
in this way. In my mother lodge a prayer
closed in this manner could offend our
Jewish brethren. Of the fifty-five charter
members of the lodge, about one-third
were Jews, and we still have a few.

One of the beauties of Freemasonry is
that men of many faiths, so long as they
believe in a Supreme Being and a life
hereafter, meet together in brotherhood.
The Jew, the Christian, the Muslim, and
others can all sit down together in har-
mony without getting into arguments
about religion. We are a fraternity for all
men of good will.

Next, let us think about membership.
Today there is much concern about de-
clining membership. In 1961 the mem-
bership of our Grand Lodge [Texas]
peaked at just over 248,000. Since then
we have lost around 62,000 members, a
drop of 25% in membership in thirty
years. Compare this with the member-
ship just twenty-five years before the
peak and put two and two together; you
begin to see the problem. In 1936 the
membership dropped below 100,000.
This was at the end of the Great Depres-
sion when it was difficult for many to feed
their families, let alone pay lodge dues.

Coming out of the Depression, our
membership started a slow increase until
the beginning of World War II . With the
advent of World War II, many young
men, as well as the population in gen-
eral, became interested in belonging to
some type of organization. Churches,
synagogues, social clubs, and service
clubs, as well as fraternal organizations,
experienced rapid growth. Beginning in
1943 and continuing through 1958, the
Grand Lodge of Texas experienced a
tremendous growth, from about 112,000
to around 240,000 members.

The oldest lodge in our district was so
busy initiating, passing, and raising can-
didates during the mid-40's, so I am
told, that they would open the lodge on
Monday morning and not close it until
Saturday night. They were conferring
degrees in the lodge-room, teaching can-
didates in any available space, cooking
and feeding in the kitchen and dining
room, and sleeping on cots in the base-
ment. Investigations had to suffer. Most
of the candidates were from the army
base just northeast of town. How could
these young men from all over the
United States be properly investigated?
Every lodge within a few miles of the
base must have been experiencing the
same activity. It stands to reason they
were so involved with all this activity
they didn't have time to conduct proper
investigations or do anything but teach
the ritual: to train parrots!

The majority of those new Masons
were, probably, in their twenties. Now,
fifty years later, they are in their seven-
ties and we are burying them one by one.
In today's world there is more competi-
tion for a young man's time. Young men
are not attracted to a fraternity as they
once were, and we are becoming an old
men's club with the average age of our
members in the sixties. This is of great
concern to many of our Masonic leaders.
We have lost two generations of our
young men to the Korean and Vietnam-
ese Wars and the drug culture. Many
ways are proposed for increasing our
membership, or at least of slowing the
losses. From public relations to the verge
of breaking a long-time rule and recruit-
ing, we are trying to stem the time of
declining membership. Each year we
lose more and more to non-payment of
dues. Some of this is caused by financial
problems, but much is caused by lack of
interest. Stated meetings are, in many
cases, nothing more than a boring con-
versation between the master and secre-
tary, with the secretary doing most of the
talking. Not everyone likes to memorize
ritual and "play act" the same old cere-
monies, beautiful as they are, night after
night. We are concentrating on numbers
(quantity) more than on quality. Our
investigating committees are not doing a
good job of screening candidates. As
long as the petitioner does not beat his
wife and children, is not falling down
drunk, or has not robbed a liquor store
lately, he is considered a good candidate
for the "good ol' boys club" with ritual.

What were lodges doing before the
Great Depression to be a vital part of the
community? Whatever it was, it was sus-
pended with all the activity during the
growth of the mid-40s, and eventually
forgotten. We have lost the prestige and
influence Masonry once had. The most
influential men in the community in the
pre- 1940 days were Masons . In most
communities this is no longer true. Few
lawyers, fewer judges, fewer clergy, doc-
tors, educators, or other professional
men are members of the Craft. The vast
majority of our members are working
men. I have nothing against working
men; I consider myself fortunate to be
one. But for the most part, the lodge has
been taken over by working men; those
community leaders with prestige and in-
fluence are no longer the Masons who
run the lodges. In fact, the majority of
these men are not even interested in be-
coming members.

Add to that the fact that we teach the
ritual, but never sit down and discuss
where it came from and what it means.
Most seem to think the ritual came down
from the mountain in its present form,
carved in stone, and that it cannot be
altered. We exalt the ritualist to the point
that he is the only one who has a chance
of attaining leadership in the fraternity,
and in many cases he has no other qual-
ifications.

Try to educate these members in any-
thing but ritual and you are met with
apathy or hostility because this is the
only thing they know or care about.
They seem to think we have been doing
it this way since "time immemorial,"
and they do not want the boat rocked. So
we follow blindly along, parroting the
words, calling it Masonry, and wonder-
ing why Freemasonry has lost its pres-
tige, influence, and dignity.

A Mason shows up for a Grand Lodge
Workshop wearing dirty blue jeans, a
dirty blue shirt with the tail hanging out,
a filthy hat on his head, and a big plug of
tobacco in his jaw. I have attended
lodges where one of the three principal
officers sat in his chair with his gavel in
one hand and styrofoam cup in the other
to spit his tobacco in. What kind of ex-
ample is this for the world to see, much
less a newly initiated Entered Appren-
tice? And yet it happens today.

Attend a lodge where the officers dress
in a suit and you will see them perform
better and with more dignity than those
who do not. Why? Because they have
pride in their lodge and Freemasonry.
Somehow our ritual has been changed,
because old exposures show that it was
once said " It is the internal as well as the
external" that counts.

I visited a lodge on their stated meeting
recently, where of the twenty-odd Ma-
sons present, I was the only one wearing
a coat and tie. The decorum was terrible.
Most members never rose to address the
Master. Most simply blurted out their
comments from their seated position,
unasked. What happened to the idea that
a Mason should be a gentleman?

Let's go back to the subject of leader-
ship. Many Masonic lodges have been
suffering trom a lack of qualified leader-
ship. Brothers have occupied the Orien-
tal chair simply because they possess a
good memory and can recite the ritual
with some degree of proficiency. It seems
to make no difference that they have no
grasp of parliamentary procedure as it
should be practiced in a Masonic lodge,
no skill with words for public speaking,
no creative ability to do something un-
usual, no leadership ability and no com-
mon sense. They have been "Faithful
and punctual" to their trust and have
demonstrated their loyalty to the lodge
by perfect attendance and working in the
degrees at every opportunity. Add to
that the fact that they do not make waves,
and they are looked upon as just right for
elevation to the East. And there we have
it: another dull and boring year at the
lodge.

About three years ago the Grand Lodge
Committee on Masonic Education and
Service introduced a program called
L.I.F.E., an acronym for Lodge In-
struction for Effectiveness. It is a
course of instruction for potential lodge
officers that covers many of the aspects
of running a lodge. Subjects ranging
from the most private affairs (what to do
in the event of a Masonic trial) to public
relations are dealt with in a work book.
The Grand Lodge requires that each
prospective master or warden complete
it before he is installed.

Each lodge is required to assign one of
its past masters as L.I.F.E. Counselor.
He works with every member who wants
to take the course, especially with the
potential officers, who are required to
complete it. Upon completing the
course, the brother is certified to the
Grand Lodge and receives a certificate of
satisfactory completion. As a result of
this program, more qualified brethren
are ascending to the Master's Chair.

This still does not solve the problem of
selecting the right brother to lead the
lodge. There is a quotation in The Wiz-
ard of Oz in which the scarecrow asks the
wizard to give him some brains. The
wizard replies, "I can't give you brains,
but I can give you a diploma! We are
giving diplomas, but we cannot give
brains.

We must select the brother with the
brains, the innate intelligence if you will,
to lead the lodge. There are not too many
of them around, and the few that have
been attracted to the fraternity do not
find much of interest to give them the
desire to be a leader. They are looking
for something on a higher intellectual
level to occupy their time. Learning and
reciting ritual, without digging into the
meanings and philosophy behind it is not
enough for them.

Discussion around the lodge is centered
around getting the words in the right
order, not in the philosophy or the mean-
ing. The real beauty in the ritual is not
in how well it is performed or taught, but
in what it teaches the individual, be he
candidate, performer, or observer. How
the individual Mason interprets and un-
derstands the symbolism is what makes
it beautiful to him. When he develops his
own understanding and practices it to
make himself a better man, then he will
be well on his way to being a true Master
of Speculative Masonry.

A Mason with this understanding and
background is the desired candidate for
training in such a program as L.I.F.E.
If he is also interested and active in the
lodge, he will be the Truly Qualified
Master. This is the man we must seek to
lead our lodges. When we find him, we
should keep him for as long as he is
willing to serve, and give him all the
support that he needs. We will never
raise the quality of our lodges if we con-
tinue to replace the truly qualified offi-
cers on a yearly basis with someone who
does not meet the standard.

We treat the office as if it were an honor
to be passed around, not as a responsi-
bility that needs the best man for the job .
We certainly have seen this wisdom in
the office of secretary. We get a good one
who is willing to do the job and keep him
as long as he will serve. The same is
usually true of the treasurer. If we
treated the office of master this way, it
would hold a lot more honor than it does
now for the one selected. You cannot run
a successful business if you change the
chief executive officer on an annual
basis. Why should we think we can run
a successful lodge, or Grand Lodge for
that matter, in this way?

It is time we rethink our method of
selecting leadership. We have many pro-
blems facing our fraternity in the world
today; and until we establish stronger,
more knowledgeable, better trained
leaders, we will not improve fast enough
to keep up. Successful organizations are
run by strong leaders. Is it not time we
became a successful organization?

We are no longer the Freemasons that
our great-grandfathers were. Their fra-
ternity had the prestige and respect of the
community in which it was located. It
was respected because of the community
leaders who were members of the craft.
We are trying in many ways to retrieve
that prestige and respect, but . . .

Until we clean up our act by not only
looking for the negative, but looking for
the positive qualifications of our candi-
dates;

Until we find what our lodges were
doing before the Great Depression;

Until we present entertaining as well as
educational programs to our lodges so
that members who do not care to learn
and recite ritual will be eager to attend;

Until we stop replacing the master of
the lodge and the Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge every year, as though we
were looking for the right one, and keep
a good one for as long as he will serve;

Until we restore pride in our lodges by
returning dignity to our appearance,
meetings, and ritual;

Until we stop all the piques and quarrels
and petty jealousies among the brethren
in our lodges;

Until we really teach the meaning of the
words of our ritual and how to put the
meaning into practice;

Until we make membership not only
desirable, but harder to attain, including
higher degree fees and dues;

Until we stop worrying about those who
are reluctant to pay their dues and whose
only support of the lodge is financial;

Until we stop worrying about making
more members and devote our time and
energy to making Masons;

We will continue the decline in mem-
bership, prestige, and influence until the
day when a few brothers, who really un-
derstand "What Masonry is all
about," return the Craft to its rightful
place in our society!

There is nothing wrong with Freema-
sonry; what is wrong is the way we Free-
masons conduct ourselves and practice
our Craft. We are what is wrong with the
Craft .

I may sound as if I am an opponent of
Freemasonry, but I love the fraternity. I would
like to see it restored to its rightful place in our
society. All it will take is for Masons to become
not only educated in the tenets, principles, and
honest history of the Craft, but for them to take
pride in our fraternity and practice what they
preach.
