he world.

This system, and those who imitate its hierarchal and centralizing
organization, also give power to those hierarchal principles and
systems against which Congregationalism has ever protested as
corrupting and enslaving the church.

The system also cultivates a love of swelling titles, and of gaudy
decorations and display in dress, that are hostile to the genius of
our Constitution, and to true republican and Christian dignity and
simplicity.

From this system other organizations have borrowed much, and some do
not essentially differ from it in practical working.

Other organizations, however, for the ends of temperance reform, have
adopted modes of organization, display in dress, and secret signs for
the purposes of recognition and defense. The ends and proceedings of
these temperance societies are so well known that it is often denied
that they are secret societies; yet they do, avowedly for purposes of
defense, resort to secrecy, and have imitated modes of dress and
organization found in Masonry. And members of Masonic lodges declare
that they involve, in fact, all the principles of Masonic
organizations, and rely on them ultimately leading to their own order.

While we recognize the true devotion of the members of these societies
to the cause of temperance, and acknowledge and commend their active
efforts to resist the progress of one of the greatest evils of the
age, we yet can not concede the wisdom or desirableness of a resort to
principles and modes of action which tend to create a current toward
other secret organizations not aiming at their ends, nor actuated by
their spirit of temperance reform.

In conclusion, we respectfully present the Association the following
principles foradoption [sic]:

_Resolved_, 1. That in dealing with secret organizations, this
Association recognizes the need of a careful statement of principles
and a wise discrimination of things that differ.

2. That there are some legitimate concealments of an organized
character--such as the privacies of the family and business firms,
the temporary concealment of public negotiations at critical stages,
the occasional withdrawal of scandals which could only disturb and
demoralize communities, and the secrecy of military combinations;
nor are we prepared totally to condemn all private plans and
arrangements between good and true citizens, in great emergencies,
to resist the machinations of the wicked.