Introduction: part 2
A sociologist
studying American voluntary associations might ask the question, "Why
do Masonic Lodges engage in charitable activities?" To an academic,
this might seem to be a deeply penetrating question. To one familiar
with Masonry, however, this is like asking, "Why do schools engage in
educational activities?" In both cases, the activities in question are
fundamental to the basic purpose of the organizations.
Philanthropy is
an inseparable part of the Masonic Fraternity. Whether local luncheon
clubs with a few dozen participants or national groups with membership
in the hundreds of thousands, an almost universal feature of Masonic
organizations is their sense of duty in supporting charity. Also, a
study of Masonic charities is a study of the evolving needs of American
society. When food and shelter were immediate and almost daily concerns,
Masons responded with firewood and the fruits of their harvests. When
care of the aged, widows, and orphans were worries, Masons erected retirement
homes and orphanages. When education was needed, Masons built schools
and established scholarships. When these basic needs moved even farther
from common experience, Masons turned their philanthropy to crippled
children, burn victims, the speech, language, sight, or hearing impaired,
the mentally ill, cancer patients, and many others.
This book provides
a brief outline of American Masonic philanthropies and tries to give
a precise accounting of all their expenditures during the year 1995.
This accounting, however, cannot begin to provide a final total of charitable
expenditures because it is much like entering any American town and
trying to document all the donations made by local civic and religious
organizations in a given year. You might come to understand the size
and variety of efforts within the community, but the precise total would
remain elusive. If this volume leaves the reader with an appreciation
of the rich diversity and the tremendous magnitude of American Masonic
charities, then it will have met its objectives.
At a Grand Lodge
meeting, held at the Lodge room in the city of Richmond, on Friday,
the 28th day of October, A.D. 1785, A.L. 5785.
The [Grand] Lodge...then took into
their consideration the properest method to be adopted for rendering
the general charity the most diffusive, when it was determined that
a committee of charity should be appointed to hear and determine on
the propriety of objects and direct and order the relief proper to be
granted. And a committee was therefore appointed by the Most Worshipful
to consist of the Right Worshipful, the Deputy Grand Master, [Edmund
Randolph], Brothers Montgomery, McClurg and Wood, or any three of them.
Proceedings of the MW Grand Lodge
of Ancient York Rite Masons of the State of Virginia from 1778-1822,
pp. 15-16.
J. Dove and J. E. Goode, 1874
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