By T.S. Akers
On March 17, 2020, three
days after his first edict, the Grand Master of Masons of the State of Oklahoma
suspended all Masonic activity until April 10 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This
suspension was soon expanded, with an eventual end date of June 1. This led
many Masons to seek out other ways to gather fraternally through applications
such as Zoom video conferencing. Guildhall Lodge No. 553 A.F. & A.M. chose
to utilize video conferences to share Masonic light, or education, in the
months of April and May. It was at the May video meeting that it was asked what
Masons were doing in 1918 in response to the Spanish flu pandemic. This author
was tasked with preparing a paper on that topic to be delivered at the next
meeting, held June 3.
---
Ira C. Bryant, District
Deputy Grand Master, was born at West Point, Mississippi, October 23rd,
1877, and was educated in that state. He was a member of Maysville Lodge No.
233, A.F. & A.M., Pauls Valley Chapter No. 30, R.A.M.
He received his Scottish
Rite Degrees in Guthrie Consistory and his Shrine in India Temple, Oklahoma
City.
He enlisted in the
officers’ Training Camp at Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky, August 26th,
1918, contracted Spanish influenza and died October 7th, 1918. He
was buried at Vardeman, Mississippi, October 12.
Maysville Lodge being
unable to attend the burial wired the Master of Vardeman Lodge to take charge
of the body and bury with ceremonies of the fraternity.[1]
The grave of Bro. Ira C. Bryant at Bethlehem Cemetery in Calhoun County, Mississippi.
(From Find a Grave)
Brother
Bryant was not the first Oklahoma Mason to succumb to the Spanish flu and he
was far from the last. The fraternal dead reported in the proceedings of the
Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma for the year 1918 strangely number 1,918.[2] While the cause of death
for those men in 1918 is not identified, the same accounting for the year 1917
was only 392.[3]
There was of course a war on at this time and the proceedings note that 8,800
Oklahoma Masons were serving in the nation’s military.[4] While there does not
appear to be an accounting of Oklahoma’s Masonic dead from the Great War, a
total of 726 Oklahomans gave the last full measure.[5] The Spanish flu claimed
the lives of 7,500 Oklahomans.[6]
In
January of 1918, something strange was afoot in Haskell County, Kansas. A
newspaper there, the Santa Fe Monitor, reported “Most everybody over the
county is having lagrippe or pneumonia.” Loring Miner, a local physician,
believed the situation was severe enough to report an influenza outbreak to the
U.S. Public Health Service. At this time, influenza was not classified as a
“reportable” disease.[7] Historians have held for
some time that the Spanish flu of 1918 began in Kansas. More recent research
has pointed to China as the place of origin. The British Commonwealth mobilized
around 94,000 Chinese laborers for service behind the lines in France and
transported them by rail across Canada to expedite their arrival. In November
of 1917, a respiratory illness had begun to spread across northern China.
Chinese health officials later identified this malady as being identical to the
Spanish flu. A British legation official in Beijing would go on to confirm the
illness as influenza in a 1918 report. Of the 25,000 Chinese laborers that had
been transported across Canada in 1917, 3,000 ended up in medical quarantine
with flu-like symptoms.[8] Regardless of where the
Spanish flu began, it had certainly made its way to Kansas. Several men from
Haskell County soon found themselves at Camp Funston, in central Kansas, for
induction into the U.S. Army. On March 4, 1918, the first case of influenza at
Camp Funston was reported. Within two weeks, there were eleven hundred soldiers
sick in hospital and thousands more confined to their barracks. Twenty-four of
thirty-six of the large induction camps reported influenza outbreaks, sickening
tens of thousands.[9]
With the war, the virus had an ultimate destination of Europe.
Over
the course of fifteen months, the Spanish flu killed between 50 and 100 million
people worldwide, though the true death toll will likely never be known. In the
early days of the pandemic, there was little concern, as the virus was not
particularly deadly, despite its high infection rate. Within the British Grand
Fleet 10,313 sailors were admitted to sick bay in May and June of 1918 with
influenza, but only four died. Both the Allied and Central powers saw influenza
outbreaks in the field in April, but it was dismissed as a “three-day fever.”
What was unusual was the way in which the virus afflicted the young and it was
showing signs of gaining severity. At one French Army camp, 688 soldiers of
1,018 were hospitalized and 49 died. The virus only gained real attention as it
swept through Spain, sickening the king. The Spanish press, which was not being
censored owing to the nation’s neutrality, wrote at length on the virus which
garnered it the name “the Spanish flu.” By July, the U.S. Army reported the “epidemic
is about at an end.” A British medical journal was so bold as to state that the
malady had completely disappeared.[10]
What
we know about the Spanish flu today is, that it came in three waves. The
Spanish flu, which has been identified as an H1N1 strain, was different from
the standard influenza in that it infected the upper respiratory tract, and
then settled into the lungs with viral or bacterial pneumonia. It managed to
kill so many young people because their immune systems attacked the disease
with such force that it killed them.[11] The second wave began as
early as August in Switzerland where a U.S. Navy intelligence officer in a
report marked “Secret and Confidential” indicated the Spanish flu had become an
epidemic. In the United States, it was again an army camp that would see the
first influenza cases. Camp Devens near Boston housed 45,000 soldiers with a
camp hospital capable of accommodating 1,200. On September 7, 1918, a soldier
at Camp Devens was diagnosed with meningitis. The next day, twelve more men
from the same company were afflicted and physicians soon changed the diagnosis
to influenza. At the peak, 1,543 soldiers were reported sick in a single day at
Camp Devens.[12]
In total, the Spanish flu would kill 675,000 Americans, of which 43,000 were
servicemen. Most of these deaths occurred in the second, or main wave, which
came in the autumn. A subsequent wave was seen in early 1919.[13]
As
previously noted, reporting of the Spanish flu in American papers was being
censored. The Sedition Act had it made in punishable by twenty years in prison
to publish any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the
form of government of the United States.” Posters urged the reporting of anyone
“who spreads pessimistic stories.” During a four-day period in October, the
hospital at Camp Pike in Arkansas admitted 8,000 soldiers. Just seven miles
away in Little Rock, a headline in the Gazette read: “Spanish influenza
is plain la grippe – same old fever and chills.” For Philadelphia, downplaying
the threat of the Spanish flu proved disastrous. A naval vessel had brought the
virus to that city from Boston in early September.[14] The city then moved
forward with a Liberty Loan parade on September 28 and 200,000
spectators crammed the streets for the event. Within three days, every hospital
in Philadelphia was at capacity. By October 12, 4,500 people had died.[15] It had become clear that
dense populations, as had been seen in the army camps, accelerated the spread
of the virus. The nation would soon see the closing of schools, theatres, bars,
and other gathering places. Mothers were even warned to confine their children
to their own yards.[16] It is important to note
that factories and industry remained operational owing to war production.[17]
The
first case of Spanish flu in Oklahoma City was reported on September 29, 1918.[18] By October 4, the number
had grown to 1,249 cases across twenty-four counties.[19] To compound the issue,
twenty nurses, half of the staff, at University Hospital had contracted influenza.
The city commissioners of Oklahoma City made the decision on October 9 to
close all schools, theatres, churches, and ban all public meetings.[20] The day before, P.D.
Walker, mayor of McAlester, had issued a similar proclamation closing schools,
churches, and public buildings. That city even saw the establishment of an
emergency hospital in the manse of its First Presbyterian Church. There were 291
flu deaths in Pittsburg County alone that October.[21] In Oklahoma City, with
people falling ill and dying in their homes, the police were turned into
ambulance drivers, delivering the most serious cases to whatever hospitals were
available.[22]
An American Red Cross Canteen Service team at Oklahoma City in November of 1918.
(From the Library of Congress)
Convincing
Oklahomans, and Americans at large, that Spanish flu was serious proved to be a
challenge. One Oklahoma City newspaper reported "There has been some
slight difficulty in holding the public in leash. A few institutions have
violated the closing order..." Officials in Oklahoma went on to say “…the
greatest obstacles in dealing promptly and effectively with the epidemic was
the slowness of the general public in realizing the extreme seriousness of the
situation.” Even the penalty for spitting on the sidewalk was increased to
jailtime. While the quarantine and closures in Oklahoma only lasted a month,
other densely packed cities were not so fortunate.[23] In January of 1919, two
thousand San Franciscans turned up for a public meeting of the Anti-Mask
League. The group passed resolutions declaring the city’s mask requirement
“contrary to the desires of a majority of the people.”[24]
One
will note, the bans on gathering in Oklahoma targeted public occasions. The
Masonic Fraternity is a private institution and arguably not under the purview
of such measures. However, the leadership of the Fraternity at the time seems
to have been comprised of wise men. On October 10, 1918, Grand Master Joseph W.
Morris issued the following circular:
To all Constituent Lodges
A.F. & A.M. of the Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of the State of Oklahoma.
Brethren: Owing to the
prevalence of the contagion known as the Spanish Influenza, and to aid the
Health Authorities of the state in checking the spread of this disease, it is
my order as your Grand Master that you cease all Masonic gatherings and suspend
all lodge meetings, except in great emergency, until the State Health Officers
by order permit general gatherings throughout the State of Oklahoma.
The Worshipful Master of
each body will see that his brethren are duly notified and I suggest that the
substance of this order be furnished your home or County paper for publication.[25]
The
effects of the virus were felt across Masonry in Oklahoma. Jabez H. Mann, Grand
High Priest of Royal Arch Masons, took office in April of 1918 and noted in his
1919 address that he made few official visits to the constituent Chapters,
three to be exact and all after February, owing to the Spanish flu.[26] Interestingly, the
Triennial of the General Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters, the Cryptic
Rite, proceeded as scheduled in September of 1918 at Baltimore, Maryland. Oklahoma’s
Deputy Grand Master Sydnor H. Lester was in attendance.[27] In the realm of Templary,
Grand Commander Charles S. Highsmith had postponed inspections of the
constituent Commanderies owing to the war and suspended them altogether once
influenza took hold.[28]
Grand Master Joseph W. Morris
(From the Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma)
The
suspension of Masonic activity in Oklahoma not only prevented degree work, it
also prevented the election of officers for the coming year of 1919. The Grand
Lodge of the State of Oklahoma was slated to meet in February, which caused
Grand Master Morris to seek the opinion of his constituent lodges on such an
assembly. In a letter dated January 20, 1919, Morris stated:
The advisability of
assembling the Grand Lodge in February, necessitating the congregating of
hundreds of our best citizenship for a period of ten days with the realization
of its possible and probable result, has been a subject of very grave and
important concern in the mind of your Grand Master...[29]
While
bans on gatherings had been lifted across Oklahoma, Freemasons chose to be
cautious about returning to their activities, and rightfully so. In his letter,
Morris directed the Lodges to immediately convene in Special Communication to
vote on whether to postpone the convening of the Grand Lodge for sixty to
ninety days. On February 12, it was announced that ninety-five percent of the
Lodges were in favor of such a postponement and the Grand Lodge was not
convened until April 29.[30]
The
third wave of influenza in early 1919 even reached President Woodrow Wilson. Weakened
by a 103-degree fever, intense coughing fits, and diarrhea, he began to suffer
from severe confusion during the Versailles Peace Conference. It was later
found that many influenza patients also had cognitive or psychological symptoms.[31] It is also believed that
the Spanish flu either potentiated or lowered one’s resistance to encephalitis
lethargica, a disease which attacks the brain and renders its victims
catatonic. Encephalitis lethargica became most virulent in late 1918 and
abruptly vanished around 1927. The influenza strain of 1918 ceased human
circulation sometime before 1933, further linking the two maladies.[32] The lessons of the
potential lasting effects of the Spanish flu on an individual have not been
entirely forgotten. The U.S. military is currently disqualifying anyone for
service who was hospitalized due to COVID-19, owing to the lack of information on
the effects of the new virus.[33] It is worth noting that
the pathology of COVID-19 is quite similar to that of the Spanish flu of 1918.[34]
The
Spanish flu itself did not simply vanish in 1919. Infections continued, but the
virus lost its lethality. Exposure to the virus in the first or second wave
helped individuals develop an immune response in the third wave and the strain
simply became seasonal influenza.[35] As previously noted, the
virus ceased human circulation in the late Twenties or early Thirties; but it became
widespread in American swine herds after its 1918 appearance.[36] The H1N1 flu strain, of
which the 1918 strain was, is of course more commonly known as the Swine flu, and
the year 2009 saw a pandemic of this very strain. As has been illustrated,
close quarters enhanced the spread of the Spanish flu and without effective
drugs for treating it or a vaccine, temporary bans on public gatherings were
essential. Studies have shown that such preventative measures in 1918 were successful
in lowering the number of influenza cases. Today, we call this social
distancing to flatten the curve, the curve being the number of COVID-19 infections
over a span of time.[37] Oklahoma’s Masonic
leaders made the right decisions to protect their membership in 1918. It
appears that Oklahoma’s Masonic leaders are again taking appropriate measures to
protect their membership with the cancelling of all Masonic activity for a
period of time, a prohibition on such fraternal activities that bring men into
close contact, and mandating the wear of face coverings to prevent the spread
of the virus. There are lessons to be learned from 1918 and for some, those
lessons are not lost.
[1] Proceedings of the M.: W.: Grand Lodge
A.F. & A.M. of the State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication
(Guthrie, 1919), 16-17.
[2] State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication,
80.
[3] Proceedings of the M.: W.: Grand Lodge
A.F. & A.M. of the State of Oklahoma: Tenth Annual Communication
(Guthrie, 1918), 216.
[4] State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual
Communication, 25.
[5] Matt Patterson, "More than 85,000
Oklahomans marched off to WWI," The Oklahoman, last modified April
6, 2017, https://oklahoman.com/article/5544410/more-than-85000-oklahomans-marched-off-to-wwi.
[6] Mike Cathey, "CATHEY: Looking back at
the Influenza of 1918 in Oklahoma," McAlester News-Capital, last
modified April 19, 2020, https://www.mcalesternews.com/news/local_news/cathey-looking-back-at-the-influenza-of-1918-in-oklahoma/article_82e50cf9-265b-5d81-949e-512f302abd7d.html.
[7] John M. Barry, "How the Horrific 1918
Flu Spread Across America," Smithsonian Magazine, last modified
November 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/.
[8] Dan Vergano, "1918 Flu Pandemic That
Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say," National
Geographic, last modified January 24, 2014, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/.
[11] Ashley Halsey III, "The flu can kill
tens of millions of people. In 1918, that’s exactly what it did," The
Washington Post, last modified January 27, 2018,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/27/the-flu-can-kill-tens-of-millions-of-people-in-1918-thats-exactly-what-it-did/.
[13] Jeffery K. Taubenberger, "The Origin and
Virulence of the 1918 “Spanish” Influenza Virus," Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society 150, no. 1 (2006): 86-112,
www.jstor.org/stable/4598974.
[15] David Mack and Amber Jamieson, "What Is
Social Distancing? How Staying Away From Others Can Help Stop The Coronavirus
Spread," BuzzFeed.News, last modified March 11, 2020, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/social-distancing-coronavirus.I
[17] "The Great Influenza: The Story of the
Deadliest Pandemic in History," (panel discussion, New Orleans Book
Festival at Tulane University, April 30, 2020), https://youtu.be/sycJAEKg7MU.
[18] "Oklahoma City in the 1918 Flu
Pandemic," shanehampton.com, last modified March 19, 2020,
http://shanehampton.com/okc1918/.
[20] “Oklahoma City in the 1918 Flu Pandemic.”
[22] “Oklahoma City in the 1918 Flu Pandemic.”
[24] Nancy Bristow, "Loosening Public-Health
Restrictions Too Early Can Cost Lives. Just Look What Happened During the 1918
Flu Pandemic," Time, last modified May 1, 2020,
https://time.com/5830265/1918-flu-reopening-coronavirus.
[25] State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication,
27.
[26] Proceedings of the Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of Oklahoma: Thirtieth Annual Convocation (Muskogee, 1919), 12.
[27] Proceedings of the M.: Ill.: Grand Council
of Royal and Select Masters of Oklahoma: Twenty-Fifth Annual Assembly
(Muskogee, 1919), 4.
[28] Proceedings of the Grand Commandery of
Knights Templar of Oklahoma: Twenty-Fourth Annual Conclave (Muskogee,
1919), 15.
[29] State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual
Communication, 28.
[32] Sherman McCall, et al, “The relationship
between encephalitis lethargica and influenza: a critical analysis,” Journal
of Neurovirology 14, no. 3 (2008): 177-85, doi:10.1080/13550280801995445.
[33] Corey Dickstein, "Contracting
coronavirus won't disqualify you from serving in the military, but a hospital
stay for it might," Stars and Stripes, last modified May 8, 2020, https://www.stripes.com/news/us/contracting-coronavirus-won-t-disqualify-you-from-serving-in-the-military-but-a-hospital-stay-for-it-might-1.628995.
[34] "The Great Influenza: The Story of the
Deadliest Pandemic in History," (panel discussion).
[37] Nina Strochlic and Riley D. Champine,
"How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic,"
National Geographic, last modified March 27, 2020,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/.
