AIO OSE H ESI R T AIA GAZINE
12
Childhood’s Greatest Opportunity
A Series of Impressions of Moosedom’s Philanthropy by Ada Patterson, of the New York Journal Staff
THE BIRTH OF, and BATTLE FOR an IDEA
ploma I have ever had in life,” he said as best he could with the tremendous handicap of a huge lump in his throat.
“But no boy of any age has ever deserved one more,” insisted that benign educator, Professor Albert Bush-nell Hart of Harvard University, pressing the roll of sheepskin into the hand of the man who built MOOSE-HEART.
Another honor, deserved but unexpected, was his. It was on the day of a great storm. There were no marchings and songs and displays of flags on the grounds as had been expected. Child health is a tender plant, which exposure to the elements may chill and kill. But in the school rooms programmes were in progress which celebrated three events in one. They were the foundation of MOOSE-HEART, the birthday of the man who lives in the hearts of his mourning countrymen as a Great American, Theodore Roosevelt, and the natal day of the little Welsh lad who at eleven years of age had worked for a few pennies a day as a puddler’s waterboy, James J. Davis.
Mayor William Broening of Baltimore was one of the guests at the MOOSEHEART dinner which Professor Albert Bushnell Hart had arranged. He sat at the long table on the dais arranged for the guests of honor. He sat at Mr. Davis’ right hand. He said, “Baltimore is proud of being the birthplace of the MOOSEHEART idea. Mr. Davis took hold of the Loyal Order of Moose when it had 246 members. He has built that number to 500,000. We expect within a year or two to be a million. But that wasn’t what Jim Davis cared about. In Baltimore he told us he didn’t want to be of an order that was ‘just a fraternal order.’ He wanted to do something permanently helpful for the children, yes, and the widows—of brother Moose. He wanted to build for them what should be as the beating heart of the Order itself. That was the birth of ־the name and the idea, of MOOSEHEART.”
MOOSEHEART, then, is a dream of a good man come true.
The Loyal Order of Moose is a united body of half a million men.
To join it a man must be white. He must be twenty-one or over. He must believe in God.
The organization chose the Moose as its symbol. A good choice, I think it, for the Moose is endowed with many admirable qualities. He is the gentleman of the forest.
He is a strong and majestic animal. He guards within a defending circle the younger members of his family. He wages war upon the enemies of his herd, battling stubbornly for his own. He is a symbol of the motto of the Order, “One for all and all for one.”
His home is in the woodlands. His playground is among the far reaching playgrounds of the northland. To maintain himself he does not destroy the life of his fellows. The green things of the forest, the leaves and flower of the water lily are his food. Grazing in the mountain parks he kneels—as if in adoration to the Creator and Preserver of life universal. He takes only that which he needs. He does not rob his fellows. He lays waste no land. He despoils no homes.
He loves freedom. Ascending with mighty strides, he seeks the heights. Leaving the meadows and the lower ranges of hills behind and the average earth dwellers far below, he takes
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The idea came into being. On a tract of a thousand acres of blossoming prairie, along the Lincoln Highway and the Fox River is a group of gray stone and stucco buildings, that is a home, a school and children’s republic. It is called MOOSEHEART. It is the embodiment of James J. Davis’ idea.
They had a first commencement there last year. At the same time the Loyal Order of Moose held its convention. A girl told the story in the little paper issued by the students,
The Mooseheart Weekly. The boys in their essays told what a good education is worth and showed that they appreciate what MOOSEHEART and the Loyal Order of Moose had done for them.
“Some of the men that were at the convention cried,” said the naive little historian. “They said they had not cried for twenty years. They were not ashamed to confess they cried.”
It is not recorded how the maa whom the other Moose eall_ “Jim” Davis emerged from this crucial test of whether he could suppress tears. But it is recorded that he bore a severer strain upon the emotions. This was when he, with the two boys who were graduated, received a diploma.
“Why—I—I—this is the first di-
the morning the haggard men who remained in that convention hall voted. The idea prevailed.
It had seemed a little thing. No member of the Loyal Order of Moose is petty. But it is human to oppose the new. The mind is staggered by the blow of novelty. The opposition protested against any addition to its expense for an experiment.
“But it won’t be an experiment long,” James J. Davis had said in support of his idea. “Boys, I tell you it’s sure to go. We want to build a school
and town where every boy and girl will have a chance—a better chance than you or I had.”
He talked a little about himself. “When I came to this country I was eleven years old. I went to work as a puddler in Pittsburgh. There were eight in the family. We lived in four rooms. I never went to school after that. Maybe you could tell the same kind of a story. But that’s the reason why we should give other boys a better chance than we had.”
His idea, which he unfolded with the burning eyes and the swift tongue of a zealot, was to build a town and school where children should receive an equal education of the head and hands and heart. He wanted to train boys and girls, too, for good citizenship.
Editor’s Note:	Some months ajio the ad-
vanced work for dependent children under way at MOOSEHEART and conducted by the Moose attracted the attention of the editors of the New York Journal. Miss Ada Patterson, the leading staff writer on subjects of this nature, was assigned by the editors to make a thorough investigation of Moose-dom and MOOSEHEART. Consequent to a week’s visit at MOOSEHEART, in which vi?it Miss Patterson lived among and with the children, shared their meals and play and their lives, she has written a series of impressions which will be run serially in this Magazine. These impressions cover not only MOOSEHEART itself but the Fraternity as a whole. It will be found quite exhaustive as an analysis of our service from an outsider’s standpoint.
The net result of Miss Patterson’s visit may be well undei'stood when it is stated that at the conclusion of her visit she took life mem-bei’ship in the Women of Mooseheart Legion.
A banquet had begun in the Rose Room at the Hotel Astor. The Rose Room is one of the great dining halls of the famous hotel in the heart of New York City. Distinguished men and beautifully gowned women were gathered about the tables.
General Wood, grim and soldierly in his close-fitting khaki uniform, had stood at the long tables set apart for distinguished guests, and talked of the nation and its needs. And everyone had risen to pay honor to the great officer who guarded the home fires during the war and organized the officers’ training camp at Plattsburgh. Col. Theodore Roosevelt had come in, smiled boyishly with the radiant family, smile, had chatted a while and gone, followed by the Moose salute. The dinner continued.
A man with dark eyes in which glowed the fires of earnestness, arose at the middle of the long table. He spoke in a voice of quiet command. He said, “It is nine o’clock. This is the time when the children are saying their prayers at MOOSEHEART. Rise. Fold your arms. Face the West. Turn to MOOSEHEART as every Mohammedan turns to Mecca. Repeat after me, ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me.’ ” The two hundred men and women standing with folded arms and earnest faces turned toward the West, obeyed. “Suffer little children.” They spoke in unison._ Bass voices and baritone, and tenor intoned with heart searching controltos and violin like sopranos.
“To come unto me.” The voice of the man rang out again. “For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The men and women answered, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“God bless MOOSEHEART,” said the man. “God bless MOOSEHEART,” said the two hundreci men and women. It was a great moment. It was the re-dedication of great hearts to a great cause. It wr • the pledge of the Loyal Order of Moose to MOOSEHEART.
It meant a great deal to the man who had interrupted the feast. Kc־־e than the fortune he had builded, ner־־-ly as much as the family in his home in Pittsburgh, including chubby little Jimmy, his youngest born and namesake. It stamped with success the idea that ־he had cherished for twelve years. He had nurtured it as* a careful gardener does his most precious plants. He had fought for that idea as a Frenchman battled for his native soil on the banks of the Marne.
One night at a convention in Kansas City he said to the late author and philosopher, that gepius who sank to his grave in the Atlantic’s rugged ocean bed when the Lusitania went down: “Hubbard, if this doesn’t go through I’ll quit and come up to East Aurora and do the same thing there.” But it did go through.
The fraternal order that dined so amiably that night last February in the Rose Room at •the Astor had been rent by differing opinions. The members debated and opposed until many of them were exhausted and went to their hotels to bed. The others staid and talked more. At four o’clock in
MISS ADA PATTERSON