Prophets

We stand

For the glad hand.

That's the spirit of our crew.

Grotto

Has a motto,

We will see our good pals through.

You'll find

We're the right kind,

Mystic Prophets tried and true.

Pride swells,

Fellowship tells,

What the Grotto means to you.

When Masons with dignity or a sense of humor heard the above, official "Grand Monarch March" of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, bellowed through the streets of Cleveland last week by a throng of hilarious grocers, salesmen, lawyers, druggists, dentists, they groaned helplessly.

The worst of it was that the Mystic Order, etc., is quite as Masonic an organization as any other.* Only Masons may join it. True, it is not an official order. It was organized 38 years ago by some hearty Masonic playboys of Hamilton, N. Y., as "a relaxation from the exhausting impressive rituals" of Masonry proper. Its members come only from the Blue Lodge (first three degrees) of Masons and unlike the "Shrine" (sidelong organization of high-degree Masons) the lowly "Grotto," as the Mystic Order is called, has no serious purpose./-

Yet the Grotto's frolicsome purpose is taken very seriously by some Prophets. George Jerome Brenner, handsome stock-&-bond man of Saginaw, Mich., who was last week elected Grand Monarch, speaks with solemnity of the Grotto's duty to "spread the doctrine of smiles." Mystical, he thinks that "making men happy makes men in every walk of life better." The outgoing Grand Monarch, Judge Frederick P. Walther of Cleveland, said: "We are seriously engaged in the serious business of trying to make men happy . . . justified our existence . . . world better because we have lived."

The Grotto technique of smile-spreading is to select a large city annually, have it hung with bunting (mostly Persian orange and light blue), take out a license for collective horseplay and for a solid summer week herd thousands of Prophets from all, over the U. S. and Canada to the city and tell them to "have fun." Since 1889, "joiners" to the number of 160,000 have become Prophets. Providing them with fun has become a portentous task.

But the Prophets regard high-degree Masons as "too serious." Last week in Cleveland, some 20,000 Prophets--and perhaps 2,000 "Daughters of Mokanna" (wives of the Prophets, members of local "Caldrons") in "semiformal sport wear"--had fun. The pseudo-Islamic nomenclature of their various Grottoes was a cause for mirth in itself --the Al Sirats of Cleveland, host Grotto; the Ganjas of Chattanooga, Tenn.; the Azabs of Fall River, Mass.; the Murgas of Galesburg, Ill.; the Azizes of New Britain, Conn.; the Kadjars of Marion, Ohio, where President Harding, Elk and Mason, lived.

Other Grottoes are called Ali Baba, Kamram, Islam, Zemzem, Omar, Gul Reazee, Kolah, Shodad, Kaa-Rhen-Vahn, Rhami Ghar, Hindoo Koosh--meaningless, perhaps, but a vast relief from real names like Smith, Jones, Dunkle, Schmaltz, Babbitt.

They wore fezzes and bloomers, fezzes and kilts, fezzes and shirtsleeves, sport collars, B. V. D.'s. They perspired, marched, beat drums, pranced, shouted, backslapped. Only one in 25 was a college man with class reunions to attend. The rest, graduates of the famed "school of experience," worked off the same sort of exuberance which men who consider themselves vastly superior (to Prophets) may be seen expressing with like determination at institutions of higher learning in June.

They slipped ice down pretty girls backs and ogled them. They pulled tin cans along rosined strings behind fat old ladies and grinned at them. They bestrode taxi radiators, waved whiskey bottles, assisted traffic cops, spit out of hotel windows, and threw water, pillows, bottles, shoes, mattresses. They ran around in bathing suits, danced in hotel lobbies, stuck people with pins, shocked them with batteries. They wrapped "snakes" around girls' necks, tore up telephone books, yelled from sedans, made faces at one another. They dressed up a pretty high school girl as Queen, borrowed a Rolls-Royce for her to ride in and had a Mardi Gras. They sat on curbs, hydrants, running boards and "chewed the fat." They had initiations and made neophytes "ride the goat" (secret rite).

Those with wives had to go bus riding and arguments were had about whether Cleveland was a "swell city" and whether the weather was more humid than last year at St. Louis.

One wife complained of a hotel: "It hasn't got enough meznine." A panting heavyweight said: "If only my dogs would hold out--" and took off his tan ground-grip-pers, padded along the sidewalk in his white socks. . . .

But the Prophets all knew what they wanted. They had prophetic fun. Next year, they voted, they will cavort in Richmond, Va.

Spider

At Bangor, Me., one Erasmus Snow (200 Ibs.) sat on the stomach of one William A. Smith (110 Ibs.). Mr. Smith had stated publicly that Mr. Snow was the "kind of a man who would bait a hook for trout with caterpillars."

"Open your face!" commanded Mr. Snow. (With pudgy fingers he forced Mr. Smith to open wide his mouth.)

"You," said Mr. Snow, poking a small crawly object onto Mr. Smith's tongue, "are the kind of a man who SWALLOWS SPIDERS!"

Bystanders, horrified, rescued Mr. Smith, but not until too late.

* Other sideshows of Masonry: The Tall Cedars of Lebanon, The Order of Barneses.

/-The "Shrine" supports charitable institutions. Tne "Grotto" last week voted, as it has before, against undertaking support of a tuberculosis sanitarium with room for 25 patients in Arizona.