Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/669

 FRA TERN A L BENEFICIARY SOCIETIES 655

with either the assessment or the regular insurance laws. Con- sidering the magnitude of the interests involved, the urgent necessity of uniform general laws must be apparent. Either the United States Congress should establish a federal bureau for the national supervision of all fraternal and insurance organi- zations, or the states should bring about essential uniformity by voluntary cooperation. There exists much apathy among poli- ticians toward this subject, for very few of them, it seems, have the moral courage to advocate measures which can bring about those radical reforms which are necessary in order to place fra- ternal beneficiary societies on a permanent footing. There are those in public life who believe that, because of the large mem- bership of fraternal societies and the influence which they are capable of exerting, a man who would venture upon such an undertaking would thereafter be politically "dead." Many things in this "new world" of ours have to be borne vicari- ously, and this may be one of them; yet there are reasons for believing that any man in public life who would show the courage necessary to do this in a rational and fair-minded way would ultimately be the gainer thereby. Once let the illusion be thoroughly exposed, and a grateful public will remember its benefactors.

An excuse for the legislative neglect of fraternal beneficiary orders is found in the relative newness of the entire system. To be sure, a few orders count the period of their existence by cen- turies, but, with the exception of the three greatest fraternal orders and several smaller ones, the fraternal system, as it exists today, is but a quarter-century old. The fanciful connection between modern fraternities and mediaeval guilds has no signifi- cance from a social point of view, even if it could be established as a historic fact. The godfather of modern fraternal beneficiary societies is the Ancient Order of United Workmen, founded by "Father" Upchurch, a wage-earner at Meadville, Pa., in 1868. This society served as a model for the hundreds which have fol- lowed. Of 568 fraternal societies, the date of whose organiza- tion could be ascertained, 78 only were founded before 1880, 124 between 1880 and 1890, 136 between 1890 and 1895,