The Iron Puddler: My Life in the Rolling Mills and What Came of It
John Stuart Mill · en
On October 27, 1906, I joined the Loyal Order of Moose at
Crawfordsville, Indiana, and a new chapter in my life began. The purpose
of the Order was merely social, but its vast possibilities took my
imagination by storm. For I believed that man's instinct for fraternity
was a great reservoir of social energy which, if harnessed aright, could
lift our civilization nearer to perfection.
On the night of my election and initiation to membership, the Supreme
Lodge was in convention and they requested me to make a talk. I
suggested a scheme to save the wastage of child life resulting from the
death of parents and the scattering of their babies; and also to provide
for the widows and aged. This problem had haunted me from boyhood when,
as I have told, I was the bearer of death news to the widows and orphans
of the mill town. I felt that the Loyal Order of Moose could cope with
this problem. They elected me supreme organizer and put me in charge
of the organization work, and after several years I showed so much zeal
that the office of director general was created and I was put in full
charge.
The Order was then nineteen years old, having been founded in St. Louis
as chartered in 1888, in Louisville, Kentucky. It had thrived for a
while and then dwindled. At the time I joined there were only two lodges
surviving, with a total roll of some two hundred and forty-six members.
I set to work with great enthusiasm, hoping to enroll a half million
men. This would make the Order strong enough to insure a home and an
education for all children left destitute by the death of members. In
fancy I again beheld the vision of long trains of lodge men going to
their yearly meeting, but this time, in a city of their own building,
and over the gateway to this red-roofed town I saw the legend:
THE CITY OF HAPPY CHILDREN