
Fraternal Review
Editor - Ralph A. Herbold

(6-15-94)

No. 694

MASONIC HISTORY
William Wadl, SCRL member in Cincinnati, Ohio, sent us an advance copy of the
paper presented at the 12 May 1994 Quatuor Coronati meeting, again demonstrat-
ing the contributions non-masonic authors are making to Freemasonry.  David
Stevenson, author of The Origins of Freemasonry - Scotland's century 1590-
1710, is, I believe, if not the first non-masonic author to present a paper to 
this lodge, one of a very select few.

BOOK - FRATERNITIES
One of our members and writers, F. Thomas Starkweather, sent an inquiry on the
availability of a book he was looking for, that on the basis of the 
information contained therein, merits being passed on:

"One book in particular I found fascinating. To the best of my recollection it
was oversize and written by two men who did not belong to any fraternal order
(as indicated in the forward) and covered every fraternal order I had ever
heard of and then some.  Each fraternity - including all college Greek social
fraternities - had their crest shown in color - current national address if
still active, year founded followed by a narrative of organization.  Most
interesting about the book was that all had a tie to Freemasonry, i.e., 
Redmen, Woodmen, IOOF, Eagles, Elks, Moose, etc., were founded by Masons or 
ties to Masons or, as in the case of college fraternities, the Morgan incident 
captured the imagination of college students who started this first and then 
others initiated - in short this book was very complimentary to Masonry."

Have any of our members information on this book?

CRUSADES - SWORDS
Some time ago we reproduced a paper on the casting of the pillars on the porch
of King SoIomon's Temple.  Later a bit on bronze, brass and copper.  These
brought out, to me, the amazing abilities of artisans of years long gone by.
Here is another bit from the May 16, 1994 issue of Fortune, in brief.

During the Crusades swords forged from Damascus steel were noted as to their
quality but the technique was apparently lost over the ages.  A professor at
Stanford, Oleg Sherby, in 1973, developed a superplastic steel that had the
same qualities as the Damascus steel.  It is now being studied for possible
uses.  This should demonstrate that our ancient brethren included artisans who
would have been completely at home with today's technologies, maybe even in 
the forefront in developing new processes.

RODS
A few sentences from "Ask Your Grand Lecturer" (Craig S. Campbell) in the
September 1993 Wisconsin Masonic Journal:


I like to apply an analogy to rod work:  it is my opinion that rod work is to
our ritual what punctuation is to English Grammar.  In the same way that
commas, periods and semi-colons help define and accentuate our written words,
so too does our rod work help define and accentuate our ritual. When done well
it is very impressive, allowing everyone to go home with a good feeling about
the work their lodge has done.

CHARITY - PUBLIC RELATIONS
The April-May 1994 Oklahoma Mason had a few examples worthy of all emulation:

The Brethren of Pilot Lodge #367 gave disabled students at Elgin Elementary a
television set, VCR and some specialized tapes.

After noting improvements at Norman Lodge #38, they continued with:

Their many projects included purchase of 17 pairs of glasses for needy 
children, materials supplied to a severely handicapped young man, Alphabetic 
Phonics supplies purchased for a classroom, support for Special Olympics, use 
of the Lodge facility by the Norman Police for the Academy graduation 
ceremonies, the Cub Scouts for their Blue and Gold Banquet, and the National 
Weather Association for their Thanksgiving Dinner.  They held two Friends 
Nights and several eye screenings.  And there were many other activities 
listed.

During 1993, many Lodges helped their local law enforcement officials by the
purchase of camcorders for police and highway patrol vehicles.

Surely one of the biggest Masonic stories of the year is the OETA Telethon.
Nearly 165 Lodges participated, as did the Bartlesville York Rite Masonic
Bodies. In all, we were able to give more than $35,800 to OETA.  In return for
that, we'll have 'sponsorship' of 4 of OETA's most popular programs.

PROFICIENCY
About the time you will be reading this the Grand Lodge of Washington will be
meeting with one of the resolutions under consideration an alternate
proficiency. Grand Master Kenneth S. Robinson's (member SCRL) Message asks for
support of this resolution.

VW R.K. Bish, in his District 13 news section, devotes all his space to ask 
the defeat of the resolution.

MASONIC NEWSPAPERS
The Spring 1994 Empire State (New York) Mason featured an article on a meeting
of editors of their Masonic newspapers, one item being considered a network of
information sharing.

Brought to mind something noted in our work.  Editors of Grand Lodge
publications do not always see the publications of other jurisdictions.  At
least one editor told me he regularly saw only two others. Why should this be?
From where I sit, I would believe it would be paramount for every Grand Lodge
publication editor to see those of ALL other jurisdicitions.  What else could
come of this other than improvement?


