After Two Centuries, Freemasons Are Going Public

BY JENNIFER FISHBEINE

The nation's oldest and most fabled secret society, the Freemasons, is going public after more than two centuries, and some of its more traditionalist members are shaking in their sheepskins.
Faced with a dwindling membership, the society, whose past members include 28 of the 40 signers of the Constitution, decided to relax admission standards.
It's an insult to the people who are in it, Jerry Czin, a Mason for 30 years, said. "I don't believe in going down to a lower denominator."
"You want to set standards," Mr. Czin said. "I don't even like the fact that every kid that plays ball gets a trophy. What's the point of winning?"
James Bonerbo, a former deputy grand master in Manhattan, said he worries the mass solicitation will bring hoodlums into the fraternity. "My only fear is that we have to be careful as to the quality of people that come in," he said.
Masons claim spiritual descent from the stoneworkers who built Solomon's Temple. The fraternity took root in the Middle Ages, when stonemasons across Europe formed guilds.
In tribute to their ancestors, who wore leather aprons for protection, Masons don white lambskin aprons during initiation and are buried with them when they die. The white symbolizes the purity of character that Masons pledge to build.
Until now, becoming a Mason involved an exhaustive series of steps: A potential member had to submit a petition to a Mason, who presented it at a lodge meeting.
An investigative committee then interviewed the recruit, and his family, before members voted. Mason membership is open only to men.
If accepted, candidates went through a series of year-long rituals to earn three consecutive degrees, a process so demanding it gave birth to the expression "third degree."
The fraternity currently has 67,000 members in New York State, most of whom are in their late 60s. It had 346,000 members in the state in 1929, and 307,000 in the 1950s.
Mason spokesman Ronald Steiner said low membership drove Grand Master Carl Fritje to liberalize the admission rules. "Should we remain an elitist organization or become more inclusive?" he asked.
The recruitment campaign includes ads in newspapers and movie theaters, mailings to 10,000 white-collar professionals, as well as asking members to solicit family, friends, and business acquaintances.
Recruits will take a one-day class to initiate 5,000 Masons on March 29.
Grand Treasurer Neil Bidnick said many Masons have complained that the new inductees won't retain a sufficient amount of the degree curriculum from a one-day course.
But he said that the course would be so comprehensive that the novices will turn out wiser than their predecessors.
"They'll probably be more knowledgeable than the people concerned with the tradition breaking," he said.
Mr. Steiner attributes the decline in membership to changes in men's leisure habits.
"There's been a lifestyle change," he said. "With TV, people are becoming homebodies and they have more means of diversion and recreation available to them."
Robert Leonard, a Mason spokesperson, blamed the Vietnam War.
"We missed a generation," he said. "There was a loners' mentality after Vietnam, people working two jobs."
The aggressive advertising campaign ran from Thanksgiving through January and included ads in 72 newspapers and 45 movie theaters statewide.
About 3,000 men have already responded, Mr. Steiner said, and he anticipates the quota of 5,000 will easily be filled by March. "We're very, very pleased," he said.
The new recruits will join the ranks of past Masons George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Fiorello La Guardia, Harry Houdini, Irving Berlin, and Al Jolson.
Grand Master Fritje said the time commitment required to become a Mason turned off potential candidates, who are now jumping at the opportunity to attain membership quickly.
"Lack of time is the no. 1 reason men don't join organizations," he said in a written statement.
Mr. Bidnick said he expects disapproving hardliners to warm up to the changes.
"People have expressed their concern, but they change once they see we?re about to do something special," he said. "This is a new tradition."
No matter how desperate they get for young blood, however, the policy of excluding women is one tradition Masons won't break.
"No," Mr. Steiner said emphatically. "We are a men's organization. That has been the historic fact."


Copyright 2002 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. All rights reserved.

 



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