Friday, April 25, 2008

U.S. News and World Report Article: "Inside the Masons"

I hadn't seen this article by Jay Tolson before. I just came across it on Gary Dryfoos' venerable web site, and it's a surprisingly respectful, non-sensational piece. It's even fairly accurate - there are a few statements that you could quibble with, but I think they were probably just simplifications, made without qualification for the sake of brevity.

As it is, the article comes to a rather abrupt end that pretty much skips the 20th and 21st centuries... I wonder if they ran out of room in that issue, or just figured people weren't interested in reading about their Grandfathers' Masonry.

The article was written in 2005, and I thought the observation at the end was interesting... basically, it states that membership is stabilizing thanks to large numbers of retirees joining, and then closes with a line that reminds me of 1950's science textbooks on the subject of man going to the moon... "And who knows? Those aging boomers might even figure out how to bring younger Americans back into the craft."

2005 wasn't a long time ago, but in the interim it does seem like there's been a bit of a groundswell as far as those younger Americans go. Anyway, here it is:

Inside The Masons

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