Word: woodmen
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...interest in good works, are the Elks, Masons, Odd Fellows, Eagles, Shriners, Moose, Knights of Pythias. In the latter group, whose main purpose is social security through insurance, are the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Royal Arcanum, Maccabees, Independent Order of Foresters, and, largest of all, the Modern Woodmen of America who last week gathered in convention in Chicago...
...True Friendship is Eternal") of which he was Chief Rector, started a similar one which would know no bounds. He had fun preparing a ritual but was stumped for a name for his new order. Then in church one Sunday he heard a minister use the simile of woodmen clearing away the forest near their homes for safety's sake. Promptly Founder Root chose the name Modern Woodmen of America. Local lodges were called Camps, members Neighbors. A beetle, ax and wedge were chosen as symbols. Original membership...
Insurance societies at that time generally worked on the assessment basis: when a member died, every fellow member of the local lodge contributed a dollar. Under such a system the Modern Woodmen's first benefit was paid in 1884 upon the death of Neighbor Abraham Mayer of Davenport, Iowa, from "indiscretion in eating confectionary, ice cream, etc. . . ." To his wife went...
...Modern Woodmen had their first and only crisis. After a scandal started when $3,000 was paid to a fake claimant, Founder Root was deposed, formed the rival order of Woodmen of the World, which now has assets of $116,000,000, insurance in force of over $415,000,000. Modern Woodmen dwarfs its younger rival, however. Today it has 10,000 lodges in 46 States and four Canadian provinces. Only Missouri and Massachusetts spurn it. Membership has been as high as 1,182,756, is now about 500,000. More than $545,000,000 has been paid to beneficiaries...
Largely attended by oldsters, last week's Modern Woodmen convention at Chicago's Stevens Hotel was a colorless affair where little was done but review finances, re-elect the man who has headed the order since 1903-Adolphus Robert Talbot. Big-featured President Talbot is a 78-year-old lawyer who was once the partner of William Jennings Bryan. A strait-laced Methodist, he does not smoke, drink, chew or play cards. Having fathered two daughters and a son, he lives with his wife in Lincoln, Neb., likes to putter with flowers. His chief boast: neither the Modern...