> By the fall of 1906, things weren’t going well with the string of men’s fraternal lodges known as the “Loyal Order of Moose,” which Dr. J. Henry Wilson of Louisville, KY, had organized on something of a whim 18 years before. During the first several years after Wilson and a few associates had drawn up the first Moose bylaws on April 12, 1888, several dozen Lodges--really little more than just men’s social clubs--had sprung up, mostly in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. But Dr. Wilson himself had dropped out before the turn of the century, evidently frustrated by dissension and a lack of either direction or real purpose.

By late October of ’06, the “national convention” of the Order, held in Crawfordsville, IN, northwest of Indianapolis, consisted of just 246 members affiliated with just two remaining Lodges--in Crawfordsville and in Frankfort, roughly 20 miles northeast.

On the convention’s opening night, Oct. 27, a newcomer had been invited to join as a 247th member--a local government official who that night happened to be observing his 33rd birthday: James J. Davis.

Davis, a Welsh immigrant who had worked as a youth as an iron-puddler in the steel mills of western Pennsylvania, had moved to the Midwest in the 1890s; he studied law and accounting on his own and in 1902 had won election as Recorder of Madison County, IN. Davis had also won attention for his speaking and organizational skills in the Indiana branch of the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

But, given his experience as a union organizer back in the steel mills, Davis had his own ideas as to how a fraternal order could be organized and built--with a bit more promotional technique, as opposed to the more traditional “wait to be asked” philosophy then customary among fraternities.

Just as important a factor in Jim Davis’s shaping as a fraternalist was his adolescent memories of young steel-mill families thrown into destitution, when their breadwinner was permanently injured or killed in the dangerous workplaces that the mills were. He began to envision a different kind of fraternal order--one that could, eventually, offer collective protection for working families in an era where life insurance was rare, and no government “safety net” yet existed.

So on Oct. 27, 1906, the night he was enrolled as a Moose, Davis compellingly told his new fraternal brothers of his vision--and he asked them to give him a go-ahead to set out to re-build the Moose fraternity, based on that vision.

The men in that room almost certainly didn’t realize it, but a fraternal torch had been ignited that night in Crawfordsville, IN--one which has continued to burn for nearly 100 years.

They did like what they heard well enough, though, to give their new member the green light he requested.

Davis, with several talented lieutenants, spread the flame of that torch like a wildfire in the early years. They told small groups of men, in meeting rooms all across North America, of the vision of creating a fraternal City of Children, where the children of Moose members could be fed and clothed, nurtured, trained and educated if the men themselves could no longer provide for their families individually.

In less than seven years, on the strength of his own persuasion skills and stamina--and with letters and handbills being his only mass-communication tools for the most part-- Davis and his small staff had built the Moose from 247 members to more than 400,000--enough to fund the purchase and construction of that City of Children--known ever since as Mooseheart, Illinois.


A multitude of guidance and suggestions on how to make the most of the “Light The Torch” campaign period has been posted since late December.


That all started in 1906; now it is 2006. Our Moose fraternity--though much stronger and larger than a century ago-- has again gone through a period of turbulence, of reorganization and modernized procedures, and of re-gaining our feet as we have determined our direction for the 21st century. Now--as we conclude the 99th Moose year since Jim Davis gave this fraternity its true reason for being--it is time to again do what Davis did nearly 100 years ago:

Light the Torch! -- And that, not coincidentally, is the name of the fraternity’s membership campaign now underway, through the April 30 end of this fiscal year, leading to our 2006 International Convention, to be celebrated May 26-31, at Mooseheart and in Chicago.

As is customary with Moose International membership campaigns, Light the Torch will feature awards from Moose headquarters for enrolling your first new member of the period, and your third--as detailed in the above reproduction of the broadside poster that should already be on display at your Moose Center. But Light the Torch offers more--it also incorporates a full January-through-April schedule of appropriate theme activities, as detailed in the Light the Torch Participation Guide--copies of which were sent to every Moose Center (it’s also available on www.mooseintl.org; the exact link appears below).

January’s activities included the “New Year, New Member” program, with suggested Moose Center open-house events featuring in-house tournaments in darts, video bowling, or pool. It also kicked off the four-month “Moose-a-Thon,” during which Lodge/Chapter leaders were urged to stage several “Calling Nights,” in which members are invited to a dinner at the Lodge, bringing their cellphones (many of which have unlimited night and weekend minutes) and to call lists of members in arrears or former members.

February’s suggested events include National Wear Red Day for women on the 3rd; a Super Bowl party on the 5th; observance of the birthday on the 8th of the Boy Scouts of America (an event designed to show positive collaborative efforts with the BSA and other organizations); and a Valentine Week “Give Your Heart to the Moose” celebration or a Presidents’ Day Reaffirmation Ceremony, during the week of the 14th through the 20th.

March festivities include activities for the “March Madness” of the NCAA basketball tournament, along with a St. Patrick’s Day bash on the 17th, and a “March Out Like a Moose” event on the 31st.

Finally, April festivities include a 118th Birthday Party for the Loyal Order of Moose on the 12th; a Breakfast With the Easter Bunny on Saturday the 15th; and finally, closing out the Moose Year with a flourish: International Enrollment Week, from the 24th through the 30th.

International Enrollment Week, which many Lodges have held during the last week in April for several years, is certainly an opportunity for social gatherings at the Moose Center--but more importantly, it is a mechanism by which a Lodge can make sure that every single member-candidate, for whom a sponsor has turned in an application with the Lodge office, can be enrolled prior to the April 30 end of the Moose year (and it has now become even more important to those member-sponsors, since credit for a new member is given only upon enrollment).

During this week, from April 24-30, the Lodge’s Ritual Staff is asked to be present each night (or failing that, arrangements are made to have six qualified Ritualists available each night), so that an enrollment ceremony can be held every night--thereby making it as convenient as humanly possible for every pending approved candidate to be enrolled before midnight on April 30, 2006!

Again, all details are in the Participation Guide.

If we plunge into these activities with half the enthusiasm that Jim Davis demonstrated a century ago--there’s no way we can’t Light the Torch!