MASON CITY 



3680 



MASONRY 



1829 to 1833, and from 1853 until the secession 

 of Louisiana represented that state in the 

 United States Senate. After his release from 

 Fort Warren, he went to France, where he be- 

 gan negotiations for a loan to the Confederate 

 government. At the close of the war he re- 

 moved to England, where he remained the rest 

 of his life. 



MASON CITY, IOWA, a distributing point of 

 importance and the county seat of Cerro Gordo 

 County, is situated in the northern part of the 

 state, midway between the eastern and western 

 borders, on Lime Creek. Fort Dodge is sev- 

 enty-two miles southwest and Des Moines, the 

 state capital, is 115 miles south. Transporta- 

 tion facilities are provided by the Chicago & 

 North Western, the Chicago Great Western, the 

 Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Chicago, 

 Rock Island & Pacific and the Minneapolis & 

 Saint Louis railroads. An electric line extends 

 westward. Mason City was settled in 1855. In 

 1913 the commission form of government was 

 adopted. The population, which is steadily 

 growing, increased from 11,230 in 1910 to 14,457 

 in 1916 (Federal estimate). Fourteen square 

 miles comprise the city's area. 



Owing to its shipping advantages, Mason City 

 is the trade center and distributing point for an 

 extensive agricultural and stock-raising section. 

 The city has large wholesale houses and does a 

 considerable business in grain, groceries and 

 fruits. Valuable sandstone and fire clay are 

 found in the vicinity, and the quarrying of sand- 

 stone and the manufacture of brick and tile are 

 important industries. The city also produces 

 gasoline engines and cement, and has a large 

 packing house. Noteworthy features are the 

 Odd Fellows' Orphans' Home, the courthouse 

 and a public library. 



MA'SONRY, or FREE 'MASONRY, the 

 largest and probably the oldest secret organiza- 

 tion in the world. Of its true origin history 

 tells nothing; many of its members claim that 

 it was founded at the building of Solomon's 

 Temple, but others declare it to be a product 

 of the Middle Ages. It is known that in the 

 thirteenth century, and perhaps earlier, the 

 stone-workers of the British Isles and Western 

 Europe were organized into guilds with the 

 usual three degrees of master, journeyman and 

 apprentice (see GUILD). Many large cathedrals 

 were built in those days, and the masons trav- 

 eled from town to town as their help was 

 needed. In 1275 and in 1375 guilds of traveling 

 masons had general assemblies in Frankfurt, 

 and the fraternal organization there formed, with 



secret ceremonies and signs, may have been the 

 beginning of the modern Masonic Order. 



The modern organization of Free and Ac- 

 cepted Masons dates from the year 1717. Over 

 a century earlier the British orders had admit- 

 ted to membership others than actual masons, 

 calling them accepted masons. The members 

 who practiced the trade were termed free, for 



MASONRY'S GREATEST TEMPLE 

 Headquarters of Scottish Rite Masonry, at 

 Washington, D. C., completed in 1916. The build- 

 ing was fashioned after the famous tomb of 

 Mausolus, accounted the fifth of the seven won- 

 ders of the ancient world (see MAUSOLEUM). The 

 Washington Temple cost $2,000,000. 



what reason no one really knows. After the 

 era of cathedral building had passed, there had 

 been a decline in the importance of masonry, 

 and the revival of 1717 was brought about by 

 accepted members, one of the most prominent 

 being a clergyman. Four lodges met in Lon- 

 don and formed the first Grand Lodge, and the 

 three degrees which they instituted are still the 

 basis of the Masonic Order. Any man who re- 

 ceives the first three degrees is as truly a Ma- 

 son as he whose ambition carries him through 

 the most exalted degree, the thirty-third, in the 

 Scottish Rite (see below) . 



From this Grand Lodge of England have 

 grown thousands of lodges, scattered through- 

 out the world. Other degrees of initiation have 

 been added to the original three, but there is 

 no uniformity in their application. The Scot- 

 tish Rite, which contains thirty-three degrees, 

 was organized in Charleston, S. C., in 1801, based 

 on rituals which had been developed in France. 

 There are more than a million and a half Mas- 

 ter Masons in the United States and about one 

 hundred thousand in Canada. 



The Masonic Degrees. The various steps in 

 Masonry can be explained briefly after the fol- 

 lowing plan. The letter "Y" may represent the 

 basis of the Order and its branches: The stem 

 of the letter may stand for the first three de- 



