MOOSEHEART MAGAZINE
4
“Mooseheart’s Business”
One of Dr־ Hart’s ‘4Conversations With Six Hundred Thousand”
The business men and women who are members of the Moose will be especially pleased by the way in which the needs of the individual children are cared for. For instance, every child has two pairs of shoes, one on his feet and the other at the cobblers. When his shoes threaten to wear thru he goes to the cobbler and shows them. The cobbler reaches down from the pigeon hole of that boy or girl, the second pair of shoes which had been put in order and is ready to put on. The returned pair is then mended and put into the pigeon hole. Mooseheart has never had any uniform for its children, but .treats them like members of the family. A boy calls for a new suit, and a girl for a new dress, and if it is shown that the old one is no longer wearable and has not been injured by carelessness, he or she gets another outfit. Mooseheart is the father and mother of all the children and treats them accordingly.
Besides feeding, clothing, teaching and generally caring for the children, Mooseheart carries on several^ lines of business. As a landed proprietor it cultivates about 600 acres of land, which includes horses, cattle, pigs, chickens, a garden, greenhouses and a nursery. Mooseheart produces half the large milk supply (about a quart for each child daily) and is arranging to produce the whole. In the cement works, besides the blocks used for construction of buildings, Mooseheart makes concrete garden furniture, exterior trim for buildings and statutes and other art work for sale. The Mooseheart Press prints this Magazine.
All these transactions require a lot of bookkeep-ing, particularly because the departments do so much for each other. For instance, the farm hauls for the construction department, and furnishes milk, vegetables and other farm products to the Home Department as food for children. The bookkeeping department sees, to it that all the charges are distributed among the various items of food, clothing, care, academic education, vocational education, sup-plieSj furnishing, equipment, etc. It is these accounts, kept with care and at considerable expense, which enable the Governors at the end of each year to see just what they are doing, and exactly where the money goes.
MOOSEHEART OUTGO
Great as is the income of Mooseheart, it never has accumulated a large cash surplus, because it is called on all the time to provide for two needs, both of which are the result of keeping its promises to the Order. Out of the Mooseheart payment (first one dollar and now two dollars a year) the Governors have had to provide the plant and at the same time to care for the children. For several years the children were few and their expenses small, and the one dollar a year afforded quite a surplus for the land and buildings. As the children increased in number, buildings had to be constructed to accomodate them. First they had to be lodged; and there has not been a single day in the last five years when there was sufficient space in the dormitories to house all the boys and girls. The Governors have had to use old farm houses, floors of industrial buildings, wooden camps and even canvas tents. At the present moment, about 250 children are in buildings constructed for other purposes and provision must soon be made for them elsewhere. The more children in dormitories, the more go to school. The excellent modern school building completed two years ago is overcrowded and alongside it are fifteen temporary schoolhouses clustered like chickens around a henhouse.
The main items of expense are as follows: Home Department (support of children); Academic School; Vocational School; Administration Department (including overhead);. Upkeep of buildings and grounds. It has always been a principle of Mooseheart to give the children a bounteous diet, which is prepared in accordance with bills of fare made out by an expert. They are well clothed. Their education is expensive because it includes vocational training in small classes with high-priced instructors. All this is necessary, in order to carry out the MOOSEHEART pledge of “a high school education and a trade for every boy and girl.” The Governors mean to make the schools, both academic and vocational, as good as any in the land; and they are willing to pay the price. So are the delegates in the Annual Convention, and the members of the lodges from whom they come. “It comes high, but we must have it, this* School that Trains for Life."
By PROFESSOR ALBERT BUSHNELL HART Harvard University---------Mooseheart Governor
Against this property there are liabilities in various forms (as for instance, mortgages on club houses) amounting to something like $4,000,000, leaving a net total of over $18,000,000 Moose Capital Investment. Every dollar of that enormous sum comes from the dues and contributions of the Moose. The careful auditing system of the Supreme Lodge, which is applied to all of the lodges, bring down losses to a very small per cent. Every member of the Order is practically a stockholder in an immense corporation, which is one of the most prosperous and well managed in the whole country. You may_ be proud of Moose business: and Moose business is the foundation of Mooseheart business.
The Mooseheart portion of this splendid capital is about $3,000,000 net, of which $2,600,000 is the cost of the estate and the improvements and buildings. If Mooseheart were for sale (which it never will be) the lowest price that could be set upon it is at least $4,000,000. Every man or woman who joins the Moose becomes a part owner of this property to the extent of seven or eight dollars, besides his pro rata share in the property of his lodge. Everybody knows the modern system of large buildings, in which you buy a $50 or $100 share. Your property interest in Mooseheart is the same sort of thing, except that you can buy in but will never have the desire to sell out. Mooseheart is as permanent a concern as any stock company in the land.
MOOSEHEART BUSINESS SYSTEM
It has been a long and expensive process to bring the Mooseheart farm into its present flourishing condition, and to put up the buildings. Counting in the various farm buildings and the wooden cottages and camps there are on Mooseheart grounds over 120 buildings in constant use, of which about 40 are large, costly and constructed of cement blocks which will last a thousand years. They were nearly all built by the day by our own Construction Department.
If you own your own house or if you have a stingy landlord, you know what real estate repairs cost. Mooseheart also is obliged to spend thousand^ of dollars a year for repairs, ranging from fixing a door handle to replacing a burned barn. No repair however is made unless it has been checked up by the business department.
Nothing is bought at Mooseheart that does not go thru the office of the Assistant Superintendent. The checks oh the purchases have been brought down to a science. At the end of the year the auditor goes over them again and makes sure that every expenditure has- been duly authorized by the Board of Governors, through general or special votes. Superintendent Adams and the Governors are always in the neighborhood, watching the finances.
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WHAT is MOOSEHEART'S Business? Your Business, for you make Mooseheart. First of all, to be a parent, to raise the babies, to bring up the little children, to feed
and clothe and educate and enlighten the boys and girls,. to give them a “Home and More.” First, foremost and always, Mooseheart exists so that the orphans of the Order may live and graduate and go out into the world and be an active part of the World.
In intimate conversations, like this, one is likely so say things over and over, particularly the things that count most. It is reasonable to expect that every member of a Moose Lodge or Legion, will know Mooseheart as he or she knows the multiplication table. Of course you are aware that there is such a place, in a particular state, so many miles from the city that is second in size in the United States, maintained by the payments of the Moose thruout the land.
You remember that it is managed by a staff of administrators and teachers under the general direction of the Mooseheart Governors, who are legally and practically a committee appointed for that purpose by the Supreme Dictator, and confirmed by the General Annual Convention of the Order. That is all breakfast food to the Moose.
SUPPORT OF MOOSEHEART
When you get thru with this A. B. C. you are ready ta enter the primary school of knowledge about the real Mooseheart and its real business. It is very easy to tell a Lodge or to tell the world how Mooseheart is supported by contributions of the members, but suppose you are engaged in “selling Mooseheart” to a friend. What are you going to say to him about the business of the Order and of Mooseheart?
The whole thing began in 1912, when the Convention authorized the levy of a Mooseheart dollar to be applied solely to building up and maintaining an institution for the care of orphaned children of the Order. That dollar is collected by the Secretaries of the Lodges and is forwarded to the Supreme Secretary at Mooseheart. Nobody can remain in good standing in the Moose Lodge who does not keep up these payments. Lastyear, with an average of a little below 550,000 paying Mooseheart members, over $548,000 reached Mooseheart. This is practically one-hundred per cent. Whoever heard the like? Over half a million individuals, every one reaching out his dollar bill.
During the war when thousands of Moose were at the front, a second dollar was levied, which went for the war service, and beyond that for Mooseheart. As the number of children increased that second dollar was retained as a permanent building fund, any part not devoted to buildings being-available for the general use of the institution. The Convention of 1921 consolidated these two annual payments into the sum of two dollars per year, payable by every member in good standing, including the Legion payments of $1.00 per member. So that the generous gifts of the Order amount to at least $1,000,000 per year. That is twice as much as the whole of the United States income of the year when the Federal Constitution was made. It is more money than any university in the land had up to forty years ago. It is a big bountiful glorious gift for a splendid purpose.
MOOSEHEART INVESTMENT
Every dollar of this great sum goes for Mooseheart in one way or another. The Governors make it a principle to keep Careful accounts and employ certified accountants every year to go thru the books, so as to show just where the money comes from and where it goes. The first great item is the cost of the estate and buildings of Mooseheart which has been the labor of years. The Auditor’s report of 1921 shows the wonderful prosperity of the whole Order. The property of the individual lodges, the Supreme Lodge and of Mooseheart combined, counts up to the enormous sum of $22,-800,000. That means the club houses and personal property of the lodges, their accumulated funds, the property and balances of the Supreme Lodge, and the buildings, improvements, furnishings and supplies assigned to Mooseheart.