Stateline 1106 Master Script

BOOTH

THE MODERN FRATERNITY THAT CALLS ITSELF FREEMASONRY HAS ITS ROOTS IN 16TH CENTURY EUROPE.    MOST MASONS TRACE THEIR HISTORY TO THE FOUNDING OF THE GRAND LODGE OF ENGLAND AT A PUB CALLED THE GOOSE AND GRIDIRON IN 1717.

OTHER SO-CALLED FRIENDLY SOCIETIES LIKE THE ONE CALLED ODDFELLOWS DEVELOPED ALONGSIDE MASONRY IN EUROPE AND CAME TO NORTH AMERICA WITH COLONISTS.

THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS WAS FOUNDED IN 1882 BY ROMAN CATHOLIC MEN WHO WERE FORBIDDEN BY THEIR CHURCH FROM PRACTICING FREEMASONRY.

ALL OF THESE GROUPS, AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, HAVE BEEN RUMORED TO HAVE MORE POWER THAN MIGHT BE HUMANLY POSSIBLE.  BUT THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY CANNOT BE DENIED.  THE MASONS, FOR EXAMPLE, CLAIM 15 US PRESIDENTS AS MEMBERS, INCLUDING THE FIRST.

AND ALL OF THEM HAVE INFLUENCED THE COURSE OF OKLAHOMA HISTORY, FROM THE EARLIEST WHITE SETTLEMENTS TO THE PRESENT DAY.

THEY ARE ORGANIZATIONS THAT CLAIM TO BE THE KEEPERS OF ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE REVEALED IN PRIVATE RITUAL TO A SELECT FEW.  ON THIS EDITION OF STATELINE, OKLAHOMA’S SECRET SOCIETIES.

TRT

There are Masonic lodges in almost every town in Oklahoma, but none of the lodges are more impressive than the Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie and every weekday it gets a few tourists.

Tour Guide

12:08:36    S-500   C0001

Alrighty, my name is Phillip Mosley and I'm the past Master of Guthrie lodge #35 and I'm past District deputy Grand Master for District 14 for the Grand Lodge of Oklahoma and I'll be your tour guide today. This building is the world's largest Scottish rite cathedral.

It is a marvel of vaulted ceilings, marble staircases and stained glass. The grand atrium will take your breath away, just up the stairs is a library adorned in hand carved oak, an Egyptian theater and the main auditorium is so acoustically perfect you can hear the faintest whisper.

Tour Guide

13:49:48    S-500    C0234

If you'll look over in this left hand corner you'll see some bright shiny pipes. There’s 5,373 pipes up there.

Tour Guide

13:50:05    S-500     C0234

And they're all connected to this organ over here which was manufactured by the Kimball Organ Company especially for this auditorium. / So if you all will sit right down in this middle aisle here I will give you a demonstration of this instrument.

The Toccata and Fugue in D minor 

Freemasonry has survived behind a veil of secrets that have drawn controversy and criticism for four hundred years. Oklahoma Masons won’t draw back that veil, but say the truth is much less sinister than many would imagine.

Robert G Davis

3:17:13    S-502   C0003

Freemasonry is a secret society because it used the Ritualistic structure of the ancient mysteries tradition. Which meant that a part of the joining process involved being initiated into a fellowship of men. And most initiations have always been private ceremonies.

Jim Tresner

4:49:21    S-502    C0008

There are those who insists that it hurts, and if only the mystery wasn't there. If you talked to the young ones that is why they joined.

Robert G Davis

3:18:08    S-502   C0003

There is no defining mark in a man’s life that clearly tells him when he has become a man. / And so our initiation ceremonies have everything in the world to do with initiating men into a better understanding of what it means to be a man and it is the tradition as much as the ceremony that make it work.

Jim Tresner

4:49:21    S-502    C0008

Secret, I don't know. It bothers me a little bit because I don't think it is a terribly descriptive word. It is very private. It has to be. We are talking about what changes a person's life that is not a public event.

Robert G Davis

3:33:01    S-502   C0003

Being able to come together in these private conclaves of male sociability is something that is very valuable to men.

Robert G Davis

3:28:25    S-502   C0003

And of course the ultimate goal is that we make a respected man out of him.

Robert G Davis

3:29:10    S-502   C0003

And someone that the community admires and someone who is responsible enough to take care of the duties of being a man.

In Oklahoma that journey began long before statehood.

Robert G Davis

2:58:32    S-502   C002

Indian Territory actually saw its first lodges in 1848 when a lodge in Tahlequah was organized or charted by the grand lodge of Arkansas, and Oklahoma’s Masonic History is one of the most fascinating of any in the United States because we created a Masonic organization in a territory that had eighty thousand Indians in it. Most of whom had been forced to come to Indian Territory.

Jim Tresner

4:29:36    S-502    C0008

A great many of the Native American leaders joined the fraternity, most of that because of a man named Albert Pike who was very much involved in the Scottish rite.

Robert G Davis

2:59:40    S-502   C002

So we find that the first five lodges that were established in Indian Territory between 1848 and 1855 were made up primarily of Choctaw and Chickasaw and Cherokee Indians. The Chiefs of the Five Civilized Tribes were very instrumental in organizing lodges in the territory.

One of the first Masons the Chiefs met was Joseph S Murrow. They called him “father.”

Jim Tresner

4:39:23    S-502    C0008

Murrow is a fascinating character he was a Baptist minister and missionary, and he came into Oklahoma very early on.

Jim Tresner

4:42:02    S-502    C0008

Masonry and the church were his two great loves. He saw no reason he should not pursue both of them. / As far as we could tell he would go to a town and say here, who here wants to learn masonry. And people would show up and he would say O-K as an under apprentice let's come you. And off he would go into the ritual.

Jim Tresner

4:39:54    S-502    C0008

We know he started over 125 Masonic lodges. When the Civil War was going on he was one of the major people relied upon to get food to the tribes in Oklahoma in Indian Territory. / He is known as the father of Oklahoma Masonry.

Old Masonic traditions say there can only be one grand lodge in any geographic area. So when Oklahoma became a state in 1907, grand lodges from Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were combined during a convention in Guthrie on February 10^th, 1909.

Robert G Davis

3:05:19    S-502   C002

They brought 900 delegates from Macalester to Guthrie by train and the 900 delegates of the grand lodge of Oklahoma territory met the 900 delegates at the train station in Guthrie and the two grand masters where the territorial presidents of their respective grand lodges organized the delegates in two columns and they marched from the Santa Fe depot east on Oklahoma avenue.

Robert G Davis

3:07:15    S-502   C0003

The police chief of the town of Guthrie led the parade with an honor guard and he started it by pulling his six gun out of his holster fired three shots into the air. You know the only thing that can happen out here in the west.

By the 1950’s 85-thousand men had joined the fraternity, every one of them had to be voted in unanimously. One black ball and you’re out.

Jim Tresner

4:55:50    S-502    C0008

Well many people think you have to be asked. And that is exactly wrong. We are not permitted to try and convince anybody to join the fraternity. / The reason for that is nobody should ever be pressured in any way into doing that. That needs to be their idea.

Masons believe building a better man builds a better society. Masons fund Alzhiemer’s research in Oklahoma, support education through scholarships to students through the “Student of Today” award and the “Teacher of the Year” award.

John Logan

5:39:06     S-504   C0030

In 1888 we formally started talking about establishing an orphanage. 20 years after in 1908 that orphanage opened in Atoka, Oklahoma.

John Logan

5:39:33     S-504   C0030

It operated there for two years, and at that time the fraternity had purchased the old Indian reservation located at Darlington and moved the children from Atoka to Darlington.

In 1922 the orphanage moved again.

10:19:00    Mason DVD .03

The children's home is located on a large tract of land on the northern edge of Guthrie. On the right of the administration building are the dormitories for the girls.

10:21:27    Mason DVD .03

A well equipped playground with merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms, slides, swings and teeters provides the children with relaxation and exercise.

10:21:53    Mason DVD .03

On the playground boys enjoy rough and tumble games.

10:22:03    Mason DVD .03

It is not an institution, but a home where children learn to live, work and play together under the kindly guidance of those in charge.

The spirit of giving is not limited to the Freemason’s. Welcome to the Center for Human Love in Okarche.

Jim O'Brien

7:30:20   S-201   C0021

The center was founded by the Knights of Columbus in 1981.

Jim O'Brien

7:30:20   S-201   C0021

It’s a 10 acre campus for people with intellectual disabilities. On this campus we have 94 residents. / They are completely independent; they go out in the community every day and have jobs in one of our companies or one of our workshops.

Ernest Chastain

8:29:25      S-201   C0026

This something we were told in the very beginning it wouldn't work, that the philosophy was wrong, but we said “We are plunging ahead.”

David Roewe

7:11:13   C0017   S-201

Our councils are actively involved out here putting on such as picnics and dances for the residents. And we also have a lot of financial support for this facility.

Roewe

7:11:54   C0017   S-201

It’s always a good feeling help to out someone else.

Ernest Chastain

8:29:47      S-201   C0026

Well it gives them a place to live for one thing, it used to be at a certain point the mentally handicapped were deemed that they could not be taught anything new. There were no new horizons for them. And that was just the end of it you might say you will just live there and take care of them. Well certainly that has been proven wrong. 

David Roewe

7:11:38   C0017   S-201

We're pretty much a service organization and we're geared toward helping others and this is just one more way that we can show our concern and our love for our fellow man.

Caring for others is at the heart of what the Knights of Columbus are about and has been from their very beginning.

David Roewe

6:57:40   C0016   S-201

The Knights of Columbus was active in Oklahoma was active in this state before statehood.

David Roewe

6:59:52   C0017   S-201

A man that was being chased by the KKK at that time ran into a local grocery store which happened to be owned by a Catholic gentleman. From that incident they recognized the need for an organized stand against the KKK in Oklahoma, and actually against the anti-catholic sentiment that was prevalent here at that time.

David Roewe

7:00:35   C0017   S-201

He helped the man and then at that time called up to our supreme office and said "We need the Knights of Columbus in Oklahoma to help us out."

David Roewe

6:56:33   C0016   S-201

The first council was started in El Reno on November 22, 1903...but the second council in Oklahoma started in Macalister seven days later. 

David Roewe

6:58:12   C0016   S-201

It really grew fairly quickly in Oklahoma. By 1917 there were approximately 8 councils throughout the state, actually in all corners of the state.

Ernest Chastain

8:20:53      S-201   C0026

We are not a secret organization but our rituals and our ceremonials are private.

Ernest Chastain

8:21:02      S-201   C0026

For members only, there are lessons to be taught, lessons to be received and it is best to be seen and divulged at the time of initiation.

David Roewe

6:58:46   C0016   S-201

I think the one thing that sets the Knights of Columbus apart from other organizations is that we're are strictly a Catholic organization.

Ernest Chastain

8:35:30      S-201   C0026

Oh the camaraderie, being among others that believe like you do, but being among those that work for a common cause all of those things.

Like all the fraternities membership is very often a legacy passed on through generations.

David Roewe

7:13:13   C0017   S-201

My father was a member of the Knights of Columbus for as long as I can remember and I can remember as a small child going to Knights of Columbus events.

David Roewe

7:13:31   C0017   S-201

One of the great things in my life being able to take my son to the Knights of Columbus events and participate in the projects that we were working on and he could hardly wait for the day he turned 18 and he could actually become a member of the Knights of Columbus.

David Roewe

7:03:44   C0017   S-201

We believe that through our association with the Knights of Columbus and our involvement with the church that we become better husbands, better fathers and better Catholics.

Each man has his own reasons for joining a fraternal organization.

Daniel Barton

9:13:32   S-402    C0001

If you really want to know my father in law told me, said "Before you marry my daughter you are going to join the Oddfellows." And I did, and I have loved it ever since. I have really enjoyed it, I just love the organization.

Daniel Barton

9:15:00   S-402    C0001

He was a long time Oddfellow and he thought "By golly you need to be too." (Laughs)

Daniel Barton

8:54:06   S-402    C0001

The first lodge was in Caddo, Oklahoma and then the second lodge was in Tishomingo and the third one was in Macalister.

Daniel Barton

8:54:18   S-402    C0001

And Macalister kind of had a funny click to it they changed their name to "Cyclone" because a cyclone came through and blew their lodge hall away and they just named it cyclone lodge #3. (Laughs)

Jan Lawson

9:35:50   S-402  C0004

My grand father was a fifty year member of the odd fellows.

Jan Lawson

9:36:20    S-402  C0004

At the time he joined he lived in Weatherford and out in the country on a farm. And my grandmother told me stories that he would leave her on this farm, and she was scared to death.

Jan Lawson

9:36:37    S-402  C0004

And he would leave her. In the late afternoon and go to town for lodge and not get home till the next morning, because they would be doing degree work. And they at that time we had four degrees. And they would be doing all of the degrees at one time. And he would be gone all night.

Jan Lawson

9:36:58    S-402  C0004

And of course it was no small trip to go to town any way because it was in a wagon then.

For over a hundred years Oddfellows have had one fundraiser after another in order to give away food baskets, send Oklahoma students on educational trips, and buy shoes for needy children and glasses for people who couldn't afford them.

Daniel Barton

8:59:48   S-402    C0001

Our four main things are visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan.

Daniel Barton

9:02:35   S-402    C0001

We had two homes here in the state of Oklahoma, one in Checotah, Oklahoma and the other in Carmen, Oklahoma. The one in Carmen was an orphanage.

Daniel Barton

9:05:35   S-402    C0001

The kids attended school there in Carmen and they took part in all activities as normal kids would, other than they worked on the farm there. They raised their food, they raised their cattle, and they played baseball.

Daniel Barton

9:06:14   S-402    C0001

We have some pictures of when they did their canning, of all the food they had canned up for the year from the gardens.

Hundreds of children grew up at the Oddfellows home and carved their names in the basement beams before the home closed ten years ago.

Jan Lawson

10:02:39    S-402  C0004

I find it gratifying, but like I say it is like being a member of a large extended family.

Jan Lawson

9:48:29    S-402  C0004

There is no restriction on age or religion as far as joining. The only question that you are asked is do you believe in a supreme intelligent being. A creator and preserver of the universe.  

The Oddfellows rituals are very similar to the Freemasons, and like the Masons the Oddfellows have a companion group for women. For the Masons it's Eastern Star and for the Oddfellows it’s the Rebeccas.

Daniel Barton

9:12:36   S-402    C0001

Our sovereign grand lodge at their session about 10 years ago voted to allow women to join the Oddfellows. And they have become members and that really has helped out some of the lodges that were getting short on membership. Which we require 5 to hold a meeting.

Jan Lawson

9:45:55    S-402  C0004

One of the big steps that they made was when they decided to let women join the odd fellow lodges and the women that join do not have to be a Rebecca.

Jan Lawson

9:46:37    S-402  C0004

And so they can join an Oddfellow lodge and they have just as much status as anybody else in that lodge now.

Daniel Barton

9:16:07   S-402    C0001

They say we are a secret organization and really we're not. The only thing we have that are secret is just our password.

Jan Lawson

10:12:32    S-402  C0004

But our ritual is in the library of congress. Available for anybody to read that wants to read it. And based on stories of the old testament basically.

Jan Lawson

10:07:59    S-402  C0004

I think that we are probably our own worst enemy. With the fact that we try to stay so quiet about what we do.

Jan Lawson

10:09:11    S-402  C0004

We have hide our light under a bushel so long that they really don't know how to promote themselves. And that has been one off the reasons I think for a lot of the decline in membership. Nobody knows anything about us. 

Daniel Barton

9:10:18   S-402    C0001

We've got approximately 50 lodges now and we had at the turn of the century and in the early teens we had over 600 lodges.

Daniel Barton

8:57:53   S-402    C0001

It’s just as the people came to be...television is one of the things, and football games on Friday night. (Laughs) You know, people just because interested in other outings than in lodge work.

Barton

9:09:21   S-402    C0001

We have gained a little in the last few years, but not a great amount.

Barton

9:08:24   S-402    C0001

From 600 and some number down to 50, it’s really gone down hill.

While the Oddfellows have watched their numbers decline Freemasons, the Knights of Columbus and other orders are experiencing a surge of new members.

Jim Tresner

4:45:56    S-502    C0008

We are recovering from the 60's when no kid wanted any thing to do with any thing his parents did. In fact we are seeing a really interesting thing men are joining the fraternity and bringing their fathers into it, and it used to be the other way around.

Jim Tresner

4:46:49    S-502    C0008

And it really has amazed me. Through out most of my life the average person that joined the fraternity was in his forties now he is in his mid twenties.

Robert G Davis

3:33:24    S-502   C0003

It gives them sort of a sacred space where they can meet together and learn important things in private associations with other men that sets them aside from all of the rest of the things that they do in their mundane or profane world.

Jim Tresner

5:13:22    S-502    C0008

It is not for everybody but is for a great number of people.

David Roewe

7:16:52     S-201   C0017

I'm proud to be a member of an organization that does so much good in the world.

Daniel Barton

9:13:52   S-402    C0001

It’s a very good organization as far as I feel, and you know it’s...worthwhile.

TRT

BOOTH

THESE THREE ORGANIZATIONS ARE CERTAINLY NOT THE ONLY FRATERNAL SOCIETIES WITH EDUCATIONAL, CHARITABLE, AND SOCIAL COMPONENTS.

SUCH RANGE FROM UNIVERSITY GREEK LETTER ORGANIZATIONS TO THE WOODMEN OF THE WORLD, WHICH HAS EVOLVED INTO A LARGE PRIVATELY HELD INSURANCE COMPANY.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS HAVE SOME CONNECTION TO FREEMASONRY, MAKING MASONS THE GRANDFATHERS OF THE WORLD’S SECRET SOCIETIES.

TRT