AiOOSEHEART MAGAZINE
8
“MUSIC, HEAVENLY MADE”
The Mooseheart boys’ and girls* orchestra. There are about 40 members. Prof. V. Gullotta is in charge of the orchestra. The pictures seen on the platform are of President Woodrow Wilson and General Pershing.
Supreme Secretary Rodney H. Brandon, with the never ceasing co-operation and advice of James J. Davis and his corps of efficient district supervisors.
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Legion
The Supreme Lodge of the Legion is the Supreme Council of the Loyal Order of Moose. The Legion has at present approximately 25,000 members distributed through 100 districts.
The Legion is recognized as the second degree of the Order. It may best be described as the great recreational and conservational force in our fraternity.
I cannot too highly commend the earnest and wholesome service rendered by the leaders of the Legion who have always had the undivided support of the rank and file without which their success would have been impossible. Yet I strongly recommend, that they ever be on the alert, to frown upon and discountenance anything that savors of vulgarity or impropriety in Legion frolics, but that always and forever they keep in mind, as I know they have in heart, the lofty ideals and aspirations of our Order and seek to make, that fun and that frolic, which is so indispensibly a part of every man’s life, clean, wholesome and dignified.
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Supreme Secretary’s Office
Those of our members, who, during his years of faithful service as Supreme Secretary, came in contact with Brother Wm. Trickett Giles, learned to love and appreciate him. When he voluntarily retired to take up another department of our fraternal work, fortunate indeed was the Order in drafting the services of Rodney H. Brandon, that brother whose life and work is so closely interwoven with our fraternity’s history.
Brother Brandon has developed the spirit of hard work and enthusiasm on the part of his auditors that has met with a general response throughout the Order. Although firm in the enforcement of the laws and unyielding in the principles of business, there is a spirit of progressiveness in his office that cannot be over-estimated.
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The Executive Committee
This Executive Committee of the Supreme^ Council keeps that body constantly informed of its transactions and from time to time asks for instructions and submits its reports for approval or criticism. In a word, let me say that a more efficient economical business administration, than has been given to the Order by the Executive Committee, would indeed be hard to find.
I cannot refrain from expressing at this time my admiration for the man as well as my appreciation for the conscientious and successful administration which Brother John W. Ford has given to the Order while acting as Chairman of the Executive Committee. It is only just to say that at
Growth of the Order and Reduction in Lapsation
_ Conservation in the life of an individual, state or organization is frequently a determining factor. In the year 1916 your Executive Officers began to give serious consideration to the question of lapsations. We found upon careful study that the ratio of lapsations for a period of five years averaged 23% per annum. Then was inaugurated your conservation program, with the result that in the first year of Brother Ford’s administration the lapsations were reduced to 19% and in the second year of that splen-did_ Brother’s administration the lapsations were reduced to 17%.
Meanwhile the machinery was being perfected and experience was telling, and it pleases me to report that in the_ first six months of the present administration the lapsations were reduced to the ratio of 5.56% per annum. During the third quarter, however, the flu pandemic and the abnormal conditions prevailing raised the ratio until at the end of the present fiscal year we note 12.42% of lapsation for the entire 12 months’ period as against 17%, the best record heretofore obtaining in any year.
This taken in conjunction with the fact that we have reached a new high water mark in our membership now numbering as it does 534,000 against 507,000 for the last year, I believe, is the most remarkable achievement under the most adverse circumstances in the history of fraternalism.
This splendid record is due to the effort of no one man but rather to team work; to the co-operative effort noticeable everywhere, between officers and members, between the various departments of the Supreme Lodge, the field forces and the administrative heads of your Order.
If I were to call the roll of those deserving special mention in this connection the answer would be, John W. Ford, E. J. Henning and M. M. Garland of the Executive Committee; General Dictator George N. Warde,
brothers have answered the last roll call. While we gather here holding ip grateful memory their idealism and their heroism, they rest in eternal slumber on Flanders’ fields and on the outraged soil of Belgium.
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That we met the world crisis like men; that we paid in full and without murmuring our toll of death and casualty not only in war, but even that greater toll during the dark days of the pandemic of Influenza; that we met, grappled with and triumphed over the most serious economic world disturbances and fluctuations of a century, and still assemble here today at the very height of our power, spiritually, numerically and financially, is an accomplishment of which we may be justly proud.
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Banner Year
In the thirteenth year of our rejuvenation, but, counting time from the Uniontown Convention, in the eleventh year of our real life, we witness eleven million dollars as the combined material net assets of the Loyal Order of Moose, made up of the approximate figures contained in the following items:
Mooseheart property valued at $1,800,000.00.
Supreme Lodge property exclusive of Mooseheart valued at $400,000.00.
Net cash balance in our Supreme Lodge Treasury of $63,864.
While in the treasuries of our 1,629 Lodges is a net cash balance of $1,500,000.00 with an additional $7,-200,000.00 represented in stocks, bonds and properties, making the grand total of approximately $11,000,000.00, or a net average property accumulation of $1,000,000.00 per year.
This, my brothers, in view of the fact that during the past fiscal year there has been distributed through the Lodges for sick and death benefits $2,100,000.00, or $400,000 in excess of the amount so distributed in any previous year.
length and make any sacrifice, they feel very doubtful about the fellow at home. They fear that they may not be able to impress him as they are themselves impressed. My Brother, just don’t worry about the fel-. low at home. Remember he has the same kind of a heart that you have. You are here as his representative, and he has faith in your ability and your integrity. He will be as ready to move forward as you are after he has received from you the message.
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The events that have stirred this old world in the last four years have brought about a new world. In bringing the blessings of democracy to the other nations we have really re-established a more perfect harmony right in our own hands. In teaching the spirit of brotherhood to our less enlightened brothers of the darkest sections of the world we developed the real glory of true brotherhood in our own lands. And so shall we find in the fraternal field and within our own beloved fraternity that the more we give of that which makes the spirit of Mooseheart the more we will have of that spirit to give, and with that as our inspiration we will move forward, onward and upward in solid phalanx —in the north and the south and the east and the west, in one great simultaneous movement that will not stop until the ultimate dream of the final perfect Mooseheart shall have become an accomplished fact.
At the conclusion of the reading of the report, the Convention fairly went wild with enthusiastic applause, the delegates arose as one man and gave the Director General such an ovation as he nor they will never forget.
Report of Supreme Dictator
The Report of Supreme Dictator McGee was then read. Lack of space prevents our printing in full. It follows in part—
_ In the two years that have elapsed since the adjournment of the Pittsburgh Convention in 1917, we have witnessed civilization everywhere deluged with blood and ravaged with the fires of War. Wherever they may dwell, under the far flung banner of our Order, whether in the Islands of the Sea, the Canadian Northlands or in the States of the Union our members have proven themselves one hundred per cent patriotic in their devotion to the ideals of human service, world betterment and equality of opportunity.
Fifty-two thousand strong did they march under the banners of their respective countries ready to make the supreme sacrifice that generations yet unborn might enjoy the blessings of free and self-determining peoples. Fifteen hundred of these devoted