THE BUILDER MAGAZINE
july 1920
volume 6 - number 7
MEMORIALS TO GREAT MEN WHO
WERE MASONS
VOLTAIRE
BY BRO. GEO. W. BAIRD, P.G.M., DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
IN A LITTLE TOWN
called Fernay, a very few miles from Geneva, is a chapel, built for his
neighbors by Brother Voltaire, a member of that famous lodge "Les Neuf Souers"
(The Nine Sisters), in Paris.
Had anyone offered the
writer, when a very young man, a volume of Voltaire, I would have declined to
read it, because I then believed Voltaire to be an atheist. But when I looked on
the inscription over the arch in front of this little chapel, and lead "Deo
Erexit Voltaire. MDCCLXI" (Erected to God by Voltaire, 1761), I was sure he
could never have been an atheist. The guide book tells of Voltaire being asked
why he placed this inscription on the memorial, and he replied "In London they
erect their Temple to St. Paul, and in Paris they erect their Temple to St.
Geneveve, but I erect mine to God."
One of his biographers
says "among his last words were these: 'I die worshipping God, loving my
friends, not hating my enemies, but detesting superstition.' "
Voltaire was an
author, a playwright, a philosopher and a satirical writer. He was a man who
dared to do what he thought was right; and though he did not court favor from
any one, he was conscious of the danger he was running, which is evidenced by
the location of his home, at Ferney, near the border line between France and
Switzerland, that he might readily escape from one country to the other.
His enemies were the
holy fathers. They called him an atheist; proclaimed it from their holy places
until it came to be generally accepted as the truth. Voltaire was a protector of
Protestants, and spent his money freely in that cause: this alone was enough to
incite the hatred of the holy fathers. They raised objection to his burial in
the parish where he died, and his remains were conveyed to the Abbey of
Scellieres, belonging to one of his nephews, where they were interred. On the
stone his friends were permitted to place the words "Ci-git Voltaire" (Here lies
Voltaire). The holy fathers even interrupted the Masonic services, being held in
private (if not secret), described in that splendid work "Une loge Masonique
d'avant 1789."
Voltaire, whose real
name was Jean Francis Marie Arouet, was born at Paris in 1694 and died there in
1778. He began to write verses before he was twelve years of age, his verses
landing ready sales. His Jesuit teachers quickly discovered his talent (in the
college of Louis le Grand) and one of them predicted that he would become the
“corpheus of deism." His satirical and witty pamphlets caused his arrest and
subsequent confinement in the Bastile, just after the death of Louis XIV, though
he was barely twenty years of age at the time. He was in prison a year, during
which time he wrote his epic on the Henriade, and completed a tragedy he had in
hand, when the regent, pleased with these performances, released him.
Voltaire was almost as
prolific a writer as Charles Dickens, but his satire was more keen. His verses
on Louis XIV and Madame Pompadour were among the most daring. Among his
principal works were "Histoire de Charles," "Roi de Suede," "he Temple du Gout,"
"Seven Discours sur l'homme," "Les Dictionaires Philosophique," "Histoire du
Parlement" and "Histoire de l'establissement du Christianismea."
Forty-ight of his
works have been translated into English. Not an atheistic word can be found in
one of them, but it is plain that Brother Voltaire was a Deist. The accusation
of atheism originated with the priests, is boomed by the priests and others who
have not taken the trouble to inform themselves. When a man goes out into the
highway and cries "Mad dog!" he jeopardizes the life of every dog in sight, and
he will soon have a crowd repeating his cry. So it has been with Voltaire.
MASONIC SERVICE
BY BRO. GEO. SCHOONOVER, P.G.M., IOWA
An Address delivered at the Maundy Thursday Feast, Scottish
Rite Temple, Duluth, Minnesota, April 1, 1920.
Wise Master and My Brethren of the Rose Croix:
I EL very happy to
have the privilege of coming among you this evening, to partake of the communion
of this holy occasion. It is a relief, too, to feel that for once I do not have
to say anything for anyone else, or be in any sense the mouthpiece for others.
Your Wise Master says I am a "free lance," and that gives me the privilege of
interpreting the word "Service" as I understand it.
I speak to you
tonight, therefore, in no other cpacity than as one of you called hither by the
solemnty of this occasion to consider, if we may, something i the kind of
service which Freemasonry in this day ad age might and should perform.
THE SYMPTOMS OF UNREST
It seems almost
superfluous to speak to you of such a thing as unrest; everyone is thinking of
it. Yor Inspector General, in his pastoral letter, has dwelt upon it; it has
come to you from Brother Denfeld an a most striking and forceful way. Perhaps it
would seem that there is little to be said upon the subject - and yet I very
much fear that there is a great deal to ne said upon that subject, particularly
as it applies to Freemasonry in this hour.
We have so many
symptoms of what is called unrest that it is unnecessary to rehearse any except
the tnost potent. I would not be considered an iconoclast, and yet, no
sober-thinking man has any right in this day to sit still, hold his mind in a
state of vacuity and say "There is nothing left for me to do." On the contrary,
if problems are to be solved, they must first be acknowledged as problems, then
analyzed, and finally, if found wrong, they must be met and overcome by the
fearless application of a principles or set of principles, Which is right.
Our first duty, as
Masons, is to be honest with ourselves, face conditions as they are, not as we
would like to have them, and do our duty as we see it. We must do the things
that are incumbent upon us now, in the way and manner which our position in
civilization makes possible. What the forefathers did should be a guide to us.
We should accept and revere the principle which guided them - but we must make
the application of the principle for ourselves, just as they did in their day.
In no other way, as I conceive our position, can we be true to them, and justify
their faith in us.
What, then, are these
symptoms of unrest which we must consider?
Democracies, today,
are asking whether it is worth while to have fought a war - even for the high
purposes which commanded us - because of the conditions which they see following
that war. There has never been so tremendous and appalling an apathy as exists
today in organized religion; there has never been a time in the history of the
world when the whole world was in such a state of financial unrest. In Europe
there has never been a time when that financial unrest was so complicated by the
social unrest which exhibits itself as a problem over there. We find a similar
social unrest exhibiting itself among us, for we are not satisfied with our
work; we are not satisfied with our play; we are uneasy, all of us.
THE: CAUSES OF UNREST
Of course, the prime
cause of it all is the reaction from the war. We have been keyed to the highest
pitch of giving. We have given ourselves no less than our dollars, and we joined
hands from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Canadian border to the Gulf, in
a unified response to the needs of the world as we saw them.
It is natural that
after so strenuous a performance we should relax. It is perhaps also natural
that we should now be in a state of disaffection. But in all seriousness, is it
natural that we should turn from hating the enemy only to hate one another? And,
yet, that is exactly what we are doing! We are calling every other man except
ourselves a profiteer; we are finding in every other man except ourselves a lack
of sincerity. Somehow our organization has fallen to pieces - has become
disrupted, and we wonder why.
Those of you brethren
who know something of physiology know that when a man is mad he is subject to
all kinds of disease. The very psychology of anger distorts the normal coursing
of the blood; poisons are created within the system and poisons from withou gain
admittance much more easily than at any othe time. That is the trouble with
democracies today. I is more than mere indigestion - though some of ou orators
would have us believe that an undigested mass of aliens among us is our only
real difficulty.
There are those who
tell us we are going to get over all this, that we will cool off and calm down.
I believe that we will, eventually, and after much of trouble and discord, but
there is just now a need that we cool down quickly. America as a whole has
duties to perform, and there are those within her boundaries, many of them
unfortunately citizens of this great republic, who would like to undermine that
which we ought to do by causing us to be dissatisfied with the heritage which
has been handed down to us from the days of the American Revolution. There are
many of these groups, but they have one thing in common. Though their acts may
take different forms, all of them are striking at the constitution of the United
States of America. I am not going to deliver you any oration concerning that
document; I am only going to recommend that you sit down for a couple of
evenings this coming week and read it for yourselves. There is written into that
document - by the hands of Masons, too, as we know - a statement of the
fundamental principles upon which America rests. Often during the war we have
said that Masonry is a bulwark of America. If it be so, then we ought to know
something about the documents which have made America possible. For it was the
conception of the Fathers of this Republic that this was to be a government of
laws, and not of men.
THE ASSAILANTS OF OUR CONSTITUTION
This becomes important
when we turn to consider who the assailants of the constitution are, and what
are their motives. Many of them, no doubt, are doing what they are doing
innocently; they know not what they do; many of them, no doubt, will deny that
they are guilty of being assailants of the constitution. But if you will analyze
the question closely enough - if you will bring honest thought to bear upon it,
I believe that you will see that each and every one of them is in reality an
enemy of our constitution. As an instance of this, consider a conversation
overheard between two gentlemen across the aisle in the sleeper this morning. I
do not know who they were; neither of them wore a Masonic pin, and I was glad to
see that; but one was calling attention to a certain condition in the labor
field, and the other, who was rather a pessimistic looking individual, not only
agreed with him but went further. In one most venomous sentence he assailed a
certain judge of the United States Court, in terms of personal hatred, because
that judge had upheld a decision that was in accordance with law. The
interpretation which he placed upon the judge's decision was, "Oh, that d-n old
cuss, he wanted to show that he was going to run this thing."
That young man has not
been educated in Americanism. He does not truly know what the word means. There
are many like him. But if you were to ask him, whether by making that statement,
he intended to undermine our Government, and the guaranties of law which we
have, he would say, "No, we just want this thing to come out right," and through
it all you could see that he meant that if it were to develop rightly it would
come out his way. He could see the rights of his side of the question - he had
not been taught to consider the rights of others.
Who are these people
who are trying, with or without malice, to undermine this Government?
First are those who
insist that mankind is born in strata, that the natural organization of society
is it classes; that there is one class here and one built upor that, and one
class there and another built upon thal and still another one built upon that,
and so on, from coolie or peasant or proletariat up to the aristocrat ant the
autocrat. My brethren, they have that classifies society in the Old World, and
it is the cause of most of their troubles. And this first class of enemies or
our Government would like to see the people of this country divided into
classes; they want a labor class a capitalistic class, a farmer's class - and if
they get these they will have a clerical class, too, whether the want it or not
- and they want other kinds of classes I do not know just how they are going to
find out who belongs to what class. If they organize that labo class, I am going
to apply to be a member of it; I ar a poor cripple in one hand, and I do not
work with m hands. But I put in at least two shifts of eight hour each day, just
the same. And if they deny me th right to belong to that labor class because I
do no have the grime of the engine on my hands or the dus from the saw on my
clothes, then they are going t make of me a social outcast, because I have no
desir to belong to any other class than the labor class.
But these people are
now going one step further. They say that we are going to have a government by
class; that we are going to have the rule of the minority take the place of the
rule of the majority which is defined by our good old constitution. They go
further still and they say "We have a right to carry on a private war, for the
benefit of our class." A private war! No matter whom it may damage! Whether it
keeps milk from the suffering babe, or coal from those who shiver, or keeps
other necessities from those who need to eat and drink! Not content with
asserting this "right" to carry on a private war for benefits of which their
"class" shall have a monopoly, they are backing up their words by their actions.
Strikes, authorized or unauthorized by the great labor organizations, show how
divided those organizations are, internally as well as in their relations with
one another. Everywhere is the same - the cry is for self.
Finally there are
those open enemies of our Government who say that the only way to right the
wrongs of the world is to overturn what we have and bring about a new industrial
and civil order in all these fields. In the main these are the immigrants. They
have come from an old world which was a world of autocracy. It gave us the
example of a nation which denied itself a national conscience, and which claimed
the right to impose the might of a "superior Kultur" on the world. Because these
people found in America swollen fortunes, crooked politicians, and vice and
corruption in our cities, they say to us, "These are the symptoms of autocracy;
they are what we left behind in Europe; wherefore your democracy is as
autocratic as that from which we have exiled ourselves; the slavery from which
we fled we find duplicated here." This has been and is their plea. And because
there have been injustices in our economic system; because democracy in its
struggle for efficiency and intelligence has not yet been able to remove all its
cesspools, those who were unfortunate and ignorant have listened to these exiles
who brought their hate to America.
GERMAN AUTOCRACY AND GERMAN SOCIALISM
German autocracy
spawned another German idea. It was the protest, the internal protest, of the
German people, trying to negative tyranny. It was Marxian Socialism. Confronted
by a type of civilization which dwarfed and strangled and poisoned initiative,
Karl Marx developed his protest within the German nation. Born of hate, this
protest held hate within itself. It would out-tyrannize the tyrant.
America must beware!
Beware lest this child of hate, transplanted to our soil, shall continue to
dwell within itself; shall refuse to see in our great bills of human rights and
constitutional guaranties anything different from the autocracy of the past,
simply because all the ills of humanity are not cured in a generation. Doctors
make mistakes in diagnosis, and the victims die. Let us not permit foreign
doctors who do not know our history, who have no respect for our institutions,
to tell us that malignant symptoms today damn democracy eternally. Let us
instead study our diseases, and by constitutional methods eradicate them, to the
end that the civilization which our fathers founded in brotherhood and good will
may not be converted into a charnel house of hate. It is for Americans to rally
to the cause of humanity, that the friends of humanity may save us from diseases
worse than any symptoms we can see.
OUR INDIFFERENCE TO OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM
Where must this
awakening begin ? With ourselves, my Brethren ! The one great factor in our
civilization which helps along this process of disruption, which these people
would like to bring about, is our popular indifference to our political system.
We do not vote when we have an opportunity; we forget what the right to vote has
cost and seem to hold it valueless. A good fellow, one who has a hearty
handshake, a jovial voice and a big broad grin too often gets our vote as
against real brains. And when we suffer as a consequence, we simply go back and
vote for the good fellow over again. And then another thing that we do in this
country is to stick to our parties. Oh, my, how we do stick to them; how proud
we are to be one or the other - I dare not mention either first. I am not making
a political speech, and I am not saying anything about partisanship. But if you
will go to your Morals and Dogma and read the Legenda of the Thirtieth degree,
and then come and tell me that you are still a good Scottish Rite Mason, I will
know that you are not going to bother very much with parties, after that. The
great and essential difficulty with us todav is that we are failing to demand
real statesmanship, and failing to realize that statesmanship is needed in the
school district and the town and the county, as well as in the halls of
Congress.
We have been
unfortunate - to put it mildly - in trying to find a system by which to select
our nominees for office. One system has seemed to make it easy for a boss to
rule; the other has made it so expensive for a man to run for office that it
almost puts a money value on the office itself because only men with an
independent income can afford to enter the lists. But we are going to find a way
of choosing the capable and honest, but modest, man who now sits back and says,
"Not for me ;" we are going to find some way to draft him into the service of
his country, just as we drafted men for overseas service, three years ago.
It is not by
abandoning our parties that this result will be brought about, either. On the
contrary it is by rallying to them, and making their pronouncements our
expressions of opinion; making their nominees our nominees, that we are going to
accomplish the muchneeded reform. Not the system, but ourselves, need fixing.
MASONRY'S PART
Brethren, I have tried
in a very brief way to present you a background for what I really want to talk
about. How about Freemasonry? Under the conditions which now prevail, what has
it to say? What can it do?
Masonry does not
concern itself with partisanship, or with public personalities, and I would be
the first to raise my voice in protest, should it attempt to do so. We have no
Masonic candidates for office and we write no Masonic platforms for political
parties. But if you will find me a degree in Masonry which does not point each
and every one of us to civic duty and to civic righteousness, I will petition to
be released from the obligation of that degree. There is none.
We are all well enough
educated in Freemasonry to know that its two fundamental doctrines are the
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. They are really one doctrine, for
the second flows out of the first just as a river flows out of the springs which
feed it. Cannot these two fundamentals of Masonry be interpreted in terms of the
present day need - are they only language, simply beautiful theories spun about
a system of un-human allegory, and connected up into links forming 32 degrees?
Is that your conception? Have these doctrines no practical value to you and to
me? Are they incapable of being woven into your life and mine our lives as
citizens, as well as individuals? If so, then I would like to resign my entire
Masonic membership, for I do not believe that Masonry will live or has a right
to live, unless it recognizes that it has a duty to perform and intends to
perform it.
The monitorial
explanations which we give in all our bodies apply principally to personal
conduct, and I believe, and believe fervently, that we as individuals strive to
take those lessons home and apply them in our lives; I do not think you Brethren
who have just completed the thirty-second degree will ever be the same kind of
fathers, sons or brothers that you were before this week. If you are, God help
you - no one else can. We are taught in the Blue Lodge that the lodge is
symbolical of the world, and that the teachings of the degrees apply to us,
symbolize that which we should do in the world. Can it be possible that what we
do in the world means only our personal and family relationships ? No, no. Those
lessons must apply to us as citizens of the world, too, and if they do, then a
wider field has been brought in for us to think about than we have heretofore
considered.
We claim to be
builders. If we are builders, we are practical; if we are builders we believe in
helping one another and counseling with one another; we believe in the virtues
of the builder - they are many, and perhaps a consideration of them would lead
us into some strange channels of thought; in our lectures we discuss justice
toward our Government; we counsel each and every candidate to be the kind of
citizen which that implies. If we study our Masonic system we shall find that
from the first degree to the thirty-second the fundamentals of what we now call
democracy are written there in characters strong and bold.
We claim to be a
"progressive science" and a "speculative system." To be progressive means that
we give a service which is needful at the time it is needed; science must mean
that we exchange ideas with one another in an effort to increase the fund of
common knowledge. If we are "speculative," then we must offer a philosophy,
something that is worth while to you and to me and something which teaches us,
not only what our duties are, but how we ought to carry them out.
Our opportunities for
this kind of teaching have been much restricted in these latter years. We have
had such an inrush of men who desired to be made Masons, and such tremendous
influx into our Scottish Rite, that it has taxed the capacity of all our bodies
to take care of the degree work. Unfortunately our "work" has suffered, for it
has taken but one form, the conferring of degrees. I call the process, as it is
now handled, a degree mill. It has any steam roller that was ever started in
this country, Masonically or otherwise, beaten by miles. It is going full tilt;
you can hear it farther than you can a Ford. And while we are conferring degrees
upon all of these candidates, rendering the ritual in a more or less haphazard
manner, giving the charges just as fast as the human tongue can spin them out,
we are neglecting to tell these initiates anything at all about what Masonry
means, or what it stands for in the world. And what is the result ? Your young
Mason does not realize that he belongs to anything more than a club ! The only
thing about the whole rigmarole that appeals to his imagination and gives him
some pride in his membership is the cost of it on the one hand, and the quality
of the membership on the other! The quality of the membership is the one element
which is really good ! For the rest, he sees so little in it that he comes to
lodge for a meeting or two, or maybe ten, and he finds that the lodge, or the
chapter, or the consistory is so large that there is no chance for him to take a
part in the work, and very soon he begins to go to the movies, instead of coming
to lodge.
Have we any right to
blame him? We who are here are responsible for the acts of this fraternity of
ours! Can we honestly say that the fault lies in the initiate? No, the fault
lies in our leadership! It is they - and when I say "they" I mean all of us -
who had better be doing some serious thinking to find out why it is that an
organization conceived in the spirit of Masonry, intended to be the factor in
human civilization that Masonry was intended to be, has degenerated until it is
pretty nearly fair and honest to call it a "degree mill." It is time to call a
halt and find some remedies for our own diseases - elephantiasis in particular.
The particular point
in all this is that somehow we must find the time to add to the present work of
our lodges and other bodies an element which belongs there, which was originally
put there by those who conceived the mission of this fraternity, but which we
have come to neglect. It is the all important factor which Brother Denfeld has
explained to you so lucidly, education.
MASONIC EDUCATION MUST BE A FACTOR
Education we must
have, or the world falls. Education Masons must have, too, for if democracy
shall fail in the United States of America, it will fail because Masons are not
doing their full duty. Masons were the godfathers of this republic; they were
present and took a part in every important step that was taken when the United
States of America was an infant among the nations.
You cannot tell me
that a lodge of Masons would close, that the members would put on the regalia of
an Indian tribe, go out into a harbor and dump tea into the ocean unless
something had been said in the lodge beforehand about tea! And if tea was
discussed in that little old lodgeroom, then another subject, which was just
then equally popular, was talked about, and that was taxes! If our forefathers
could discuss tea and taxes in a Masonic lodge, and then take the knowledge
which they had received there out into the world and apply it as they applied
it, then I for one, am willing to learn a lesson from them, even if I have to
wear an Indian's uniform to do it. Because I can read in the Masonic ritual, or
in the Masonic system, no two words which mean more than those two little words,
"civic duty." They are full of dynamite, those words; we ought to be using them.
Useless to claim that two million Masons imbued with those words could not work
a revolution in the hearts of men! Cowardly, my Brethren, to say that they ought
not to use the Masonic conception of justice and brotherhood for the cleansing
of our political life.
In making this
suggestion I do not mean to say that Masons are going to unite to vote for one
individual party, or against another party, or talk for one and against another.
I mean something entirely different. If every Mason were to let it be known
tomorrow morning that he did not intend to vote for any platform that was not
one hundred per-cent. American (I use "American" now in its most modern sense),
that he was not going to vote for men who were not willing to let it be known
that they intended to stand on such a platform; further, men who would let it be
known that they would not kow-tow to clericalism in any form - do you think such
practices would prevail ? If the two million Masons in America will stand for
the principles of Freemasonry and let it be known to every man and woman in
their respective neighborhoods that they stand for these principles, then every
political platform will be cleansed. Every candidate will be a "He-American." If
that is political interference, in an unMasonic sense, make the most of it, and
prefer charges against me!
"Why ought Masonry to
take a stand?" you ask. When saying this I mean that in every Masonic lodge or
other Masonic body in America there should be told what Masonry is, and what it
stands for in terms of civic duty. It can be so interpreted. And if it is done
effectively, every Mason in the country will go out from those meetings an
evangel of civic duty, and America will be purified. The manhood of our
fraternity is a great moral force; mobilized in behalf of those principles which
are common to democracy and Masonry, that force would be irresistible. And that
is the kind of an army that we can raise over night, because we have it now.
WHAT MASONRY'S CONTRIBUTION COULD AND SHOULD BE
The contribution which
Masonry can make, because of the unique position which it occupies, and ought to
make, in keeping with its historic principles, is not a partisan contribution.
It will not deal with legislation calculated to carry its practical philosophy
into effect. It ought not and will not espouse the cause of men or parties. What
it can and in my humble judgment ought to do is to bring to its own membership a
keen, thoughtful appreciation of the underlying principles which are common to
representative democracy, as typified in the American Republic, and to this
fraternity of ours. Then, by impressing upon our friends and neighbors the real
spirit of brotherhood, as exemplified in Freemasonry, we Masons can become the
power which we ought to be. This is not departing from our landmarks; it is
simply living those landmarks as citizens.
Consider what Masonry
is, as now organized in the United States. I am not going to use the word
"classes" because I hate the word worse than any other in the dictionary. But I
will say this: that Masonry today in the United States is a cross-section cut
right through our body politic. Our membership represents every phase of
religious belief; it represents all shades of political belief; it represents
all kinds of men, with all gradations of mental equipment. It represents
everybody in America - the best manhood that America can offer.
Other agencies have
tried and are trying to bring to the American people a more complete realization
of what they ought to be doing in the performance of their civic obligations.
Unfortunately, whether on account of unwise leadership in these agencies or
otherwise, men have lost faith and do not listen to them. The church is among
these, I am sorry to say, but statistics prove it to be true. It is but a few
short months since a bill was introduced into Congress, the purpose of which was
to provide for the Americanization of matured men and women, by means of schools
of political economy, etc. That bill had hardly been read by the reading clerk,
when someone on one side of the legislative hall gave it a kick, and a member of
another party on the other side kicked it back, and it was a political foot-ball
in less than two minutes. It is bound to be thus and it cannot be otherwise,
when "Americanism," from a legislative viewpoint, must be defined by a political
party in the accustomed language of partisanship.
Tell me, if you can,
what agency there is in this country which has within its organization more than
two million men who have had implanted in their minds the basic principles of
liberty, equality and fraternity. Name one which has something to say in its
philosophy about these problems which face us now. I have faced more than ten
thousand men with that question and I have never yet had a response. The fact is
that Masonry alone can rightfully claim to have cradled the philosophy of our
Republic. In fact there is a very real sense in which Masonry is the parent of
the republican idea. While feudalism was still building its castles and the
arrogant ecclesiasticism of the middle ages was building its magnificent
cathedrals, we find operative Masons caricaturing the autocrats on the back side
of angels' heads. The obverse of the benign countenances of the statues in those
cathedrals bear the impress of workmen in whose hearts true freedom had been
conceived. With such an historic precedent it can be truly said that no other
agency in America has a prior right to raise the American flag, with all that it
symbolizes, and say, "Under God, this shall not fall." There is not another
agency which has its forces drawn together by ties of obligation on a platform
which will permit it to do that, and keep the act in perfect harmony with its
oldest tradition.
Why is this true? It
is because of this fact, my brethren: Freemasonry is a living example of the
truth that men can "live on the level." It is up to us to prove to America that
this is a living fact of existence. That we can do, only by education.
HOW MASONRY'S EFFORTS MAY PRODUCE PRACTICAL RESULTS
The great question is,
"How should that education aim to help the Master Mason of today, and of
tomorrow ?" To my mind that education should put into the mouth of every member
of our fraternity an answer to the demagog or alien who advocates the over throw
of government "of, by and for the people" as we have it in America. The
bolshevik who wants to substitute the soviet for what we have, and the socialist
who wants to substitute his theory for Americanism can be answered by Masons.
For the Mason can poin to his altar and say "In reverence I have pledged my self
to be a true man, just to my brother and just to my government. Because I have
pledged myself to be just and equitable and fair-minded, and because two million
other Masons have pledged themselves in like manner, a great organization of men
exists throughout the world, where men meet upon a common level, act by the
plumb and part upon the square. A place where discords are silenced, where
differences are composed, where problems are settled by the will of the
majority, the majority carrying out those policies hand in hand with the
minority, on a basis of true brotherhood." And to the world he can say, "If two
million in America can do this, then we can educate the rest of our people so
that it will be possible for them, too!"
The Master Mason of
tomorrow can show the democracy of our system. He can point to the Worshipful
Master in the East, the greatest autocrat on the face of the earth,
theoretically, but in practice one who is on the level with his peers. To the
man who advocates that the rule of the minority shall govern the rule of the
majority, the Master Mason of tomorrow can point out what happens in a Masonic
lodge when a little clique tries to run it. Political methods are quickly
invoked in the lodge to overthrow the autocrat. That is the kind of democrats we
are, in Masonry !
Then how about those
who say that a minority may conduct a private war in this country, to the
detriment of the majority? Some say that this is a very delicate question;
others advise that those who would organize a labor party should be allowed to
go on; that they will only prove their own weakness, because only a small
proportion of those who labor, either with head or brain, will be represented in
such a party; that if you "give them rope enough and they will hang themselves."
But this is not enough, my brethren! For even if the reaction proves the truth
of the position thus taken, Brotherhood, the Spirit of Brotherhood, cannot
accept such a philosophy! There are rights which are just and true involved in
these struggles! There are rights which should be obtained by those who have
them not, and others which should be retained by those who have them. There are
wrongs which must be overcome, too. And if Masonic standards are to prevail,
there will be a way by which those rights can be sanely and justly adjudicated.
MASONRY AND THE "EIGHT HOUR DAY"
We can go further than
this in Masonry, and still keep our discussion within the reasonable bounds of
Masonic propriety. Organized labor has been and is asking for the establishment
of the principle of the eight hour day. Not every laboring man can ask this,
because some of our greatest industries, such as the production of foodstuffs,
cannot be organized on that basis during the growing season. Its brevity
prevents. More than one Mason who has toiled with his hands has pointed to our
division of the twenty-four hour day, as supporting his contention. He has that
right, my brethren! The philosophy of Masonry does endorse the eight-hour day
for work !
But if he comes to us
for our endorsement, there is another side to it. For our admonition does not
end with the mere statement of "eight hours for our usual vocations." We divide
the other sixteen hours of the day into two other divisions of eight hours each,
and only one of these periods is for his personal and creature comforts - "eight
hours for refreshment and sleep." The other eight hours, which Masonry mentions
first (mark you that!) belong "to the service of God and a distressed worthy
brother! The obligation to this period of effort (if not "labor") is exactly
equal to the other two ! And if organized labor will not stop with insisting
only that eight hours of labor is enough, but will go one step further and
accept the whole of the Masonic admonition and say "not only shall we labor
eight hours, but we will devote eight hours to the service of God and a
distressed worthy brother," the labor problem will be solved.
Apply the same sort of
reasoning to the "capitalist" and bring to bear the philosophy of brotherhood to
his station in life; insist that he be square and fair, and accept the
trusteeship for humanity involved in his position, and we can bring about a
kindred result. It is in a forum of brotherhood that our problems are to be
solved, if they are solved rightly. And if they are not solved rightly and
justly, they are not solved at all. That is what the world must learn, and learn
quickly.
ANARCHY, SOCIALISM AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
When we come to
consider the philosophy of government, we find that there are two extremes. On
the one hand is anarchy; on the other, socialism. Quite frequently we confuse
the two, but we ought not to do so, because they represent the extremes of
political philosophy. With anarchy, the right of the individual, his wish and
whim are supreme. He is a Sinn Feiner (that means "for himself alone") and he
raises his own banner; so long as he is strong enough to uphold that banner, he
is right. Then there is the socialist; he raises a banner, too. What is written
upon that banner? The State - that indefinable, impersonal thing - is supreme.
You are born a part of the State; your life belongs to the State; everything
that you have belongs to the State; your efforts must all be directed for the
good of the State.
To neither the
anarchist nor the socialist is a belief in God essential. A conception of God as
a Father, loving His children and asking only that we obey His laws as a
condition of prosperity and happiness, is superfluous. With the anarchist "Law"
means merely the fulfilment of his own desire or whim - the law of the jungle,
of the beast, who stakes his all on might. For the socialist the "Law of the
State" is supreme. The State, to him, is humanity. If the mob is for a thing,
then it is the right of the State, representing the mob, to enforce that thing.
That is law. That is right. That is, and must be, supreme.
Our forefathers called
the form of government which they set up in this country a Republic. "Democracy"
does not mean the same as "Republic," but "Representative Democracy" comes very
nearly meaning the same as the fathers intended "Republic" to mean. What is a
"Republic," Brethren - or a "Representative Democracy," if you please? Study it
in the light of the debates which they held in the constitutional convention and
you will see that it is the middle path, blazed through the forest primeval,
half way between anarchy and socialism - the road along which mankind can march
toward a decent, orderly, and lawabiding life. Neither anarchy nor socialism
squares with Masonry. But democracy in our American sense does, because your
rights leave off where mine begin, and mine end where yours commence.
But, more than
anarchy, more than socialism, our democracy says that in addition to these
selfish rights, we have rights and privileges and duties which are common to us
all. These rights and privileges are guaranteed in our Constitution and if
history is going to count our Republic a success, then we also have to recognize
those responsibilities which we have in common. Law to the anarchist is his
supreme will, biased whim; Law to the socialist is the whim of the mob. Law in
our republic tempers both these selfish claims, brings the successfully applied
principles of the past to bear upon present-day problems, and declares that "as
ye use the light which ye have, ye shall progress." Thus a balance is
established between the individual and the State. Do not let the State run away
with you; do not be so hidebound that law becomes a tyranny and blocks the path
of progress. But bring all of these considerations together, and weigh the
rights of each; bring all the knowledge and shades of thought to bear upon your
problems, and by and by you will find yourselves travelling in that straight and
narrow path which our forefathers declared to be the destiny of the American
Republic.
This was the truth
which was so clearly seen and its development visualized by the framers of our
Constitution. This conforms to Masonry's "doctrine of the balance." Those
passionate patriots, after months of toil, presented a Constitution based on the
fundamental doctrine that all men are created free and equal - free in a more
liberal sense of the word than had been won from feudal lords, and equal before
the law and entitled to equality of opportunity. In clarion tones they
proclaimed that by virtue of this Constitution man should henceforth exercise
those rights peculiarly concerned with his private home life, unmolested by
other men, so long as he lived up to the responsibilities incurred in that
relationship. Likewise he was granted the right to worship as he believed was
right, and none should say him nay.
But over and beyond
this freedom of individual life and conduct, was interpreted for every citizen
of this Republic, those great rights, those great duties, which should be ours
in common. Everywhere was it impressed upon us that the hard-won privileges
guaranteed by that Constitution could only be enjoyed, and their enj oyment made
permanent, if every citizen watched over them jealously, maintaining them
against all comers. We have not appreciated the fact that "Eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty." That is no catch phrase. It expounds an awful truth. The
eternal struggle of right against wrong, of poverty against riches, of the weak
against the strong, of right against privilege is written there. Feudalism fell
before the awakened masses of humanity; autocracy has succumbed before the more
enlightened masses of humanity; democracy must and will succeed by and through
the power of the educated masses of humanity - humanity educated to reverence
God, trust His children and work for the redemption of man from his hatreds.
The crux of the whole
problem is, "what is this Republic?" That is what we must come to know so well
that we can interpret it to our neighbors and among our fellow citizens; we must
come to know it so well, and appreciate it so keenly that we may, each and every
one of us, be a missionary in behalf of it. We must tell our fellow-voters, for
example, the difference between what our democracy says about home life and what
the anarchist or the socialist says. We must call their attention to the fact
that neither the anarchist nor the socialist has a God at all; he is his own
God. We have to bring the public opinion of this country to a realization of the
fact that these rights which are given to us all are common rights. Somehow we
must make Masons realize what that little phrase "Eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty" means, and that if they fail in their public trust, they must pay
the price.
Socialism might work,
if we were all angels. Anarchy would be a success, if we were all devils.
MASONRY will work, better and better, as we emerge from the selfish toward
brotherhood. What we have to do is to make Masonry work, as it will, if we but
say so.
THE DOCTRINE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY
Need Masons fear to
consider the pivotal question, the one around which all the rest revolve? Can
Masonry, dare Masonry defend the system of private property? Everywhere we hear
men assailing it. I have heard good men and brainy men say that it is a hard
thing to defend. Those men have not been thinking; or at least they have not
been thinking in Masonic terms. Today it is in Masonic terms that Masons should
be thinking. For in my judgment the day has come when Freemasonry's real
contribution to civilization is about to be made. Out of the dim past this
heritage of ours has been brought down to us, a heritage of principles which
have a bearing upon the distorted and tangled thought of the day.
If we are not going to
defend the system of the private ownership of property, then we will have to
abandon our building symbolism, because that building symbolism goes back in the
history of man, to that time when he first built a fireside and said "This is
mine; this woman is mine; these children are mine; I am going to nourish them,
and I hold in my hand an instrument of death, with which anyone who assails them
is going to be struck." And at the same time that he built that fireside, he
built an altar, and he said "This, too, will I protect and defend at the peril
of my life." And, brethren, remember that, whether a man goes to church or not,
is no indication as to what kind of an altar he has erected in his heart. Every
right thinking man has an altar, and every right thinking man is going to defend
it. From that day until now, Masons have been builders, and if we are going to
surrender the system of private property, then we must abandon our whole
building symbolism, for we admonish our newly initiated builder to work with
"skill, industry and zeal." We bring him to appreciate the meaning of thrift, of
foresight, of permanency and durability. In other words, we show him that
Freemasonry recognizes the existence of great moral virtues, and that those
moral virtues are the foundation of the system of private property. And we press
it home to him, if more is necessary to convince him, by offering him wages for
work well done.
Nor do you need to
stop here. Study your ritual and your charges. You will find that Masonry brings
you something in its discussion of the building of Solomon's Temple; something
which does not mean slavery in any form, but does mean that men work together,
on a basis of Brotherhood, for the common end; a system which provides for the
Master of the Work, the Overseer, the Fellow Craft and the Apprentice; a system
which recognizes gradations on the basis of capacity and knowledge; which
consistently endeavors by teaching to raise all to the level of the highest; and
which upholds as its ideal definition of the true man and the true Mason, he who
best conforms to the phrase "who best can work and best agree."
The other thing which
we will have to abandon if we are going to throw private property into the
discard and say that it belongs to all is the belief in the God whom we worship
at our fireside and at our altar. The world knows that we adhere to this belief.
Each and every one of us knows it, for we declare it in unequivocal terms when
we enter a Masonic lodge. No godless political philosophy for us! No
overthrowing of men's altars for the Mason ! You cannot believe in the
Brotherhood which Masonry proclaims, unless you believe in the Fatherhood upon
which it is based. Without God there is no such thing as a true Brotherhood.
Without God there are no moral virtues. The Mason is not afraid to meet the
issue squarely, for if he understands his Masonry truly, he does believe in the
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. He knows too, what that doctrine
has meant through the centuries, and his whole Masonic system is an evidence of
what has been won for mankind through the gradual dissemination of that
doctrine.
MASONRY WILL NEVER ABANDON ITS LANDMARKS
Those who are offering
their fanciful panaceas in exchange for the rights and privileges which the
Constitution of the United States guarantees to us are trying to have us abandon
the progress of the centuries for some theoretical thing which leaves out God
and these moral virtues. They have a great responsibility upon their shoulders,
and that responsibility is not so much to us as to the God who put them here. If
they offer it ignorantly, the more need for us to promote education; if they do
it through selfishness and hate, then so much the harder must we advocate our
Law of Love, of Brotherhood.
For as Masons we will
have to accept a large part of the responsibility for the settlement of these
problems. The knowledge imparted by our system forges for us a chain of duty to
civilization. What we need is to be inspired again with that enthusiasm and love
of humanity which inspired the fathers of this country when they wrote the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. What we
need to do now is to show the world that Masonry upholds the principles which
were written into the fundamental documents of this Republic, and does not stand
for hurling man back into the abyss whence he emerged in the dawn of history.
Builders we must be, builders of a Temple; not only "the temple, the house not
made with hands," the character of the individual Mason, but builders we must be
of a combined character for our Nation. That we have not yet accomplished.
Mistakes we have made. We have not yet reached the ideal. But we Masons are
awake now. Masons of the past were the makers of America. We of the present,
challenged to meet the needs of a new world crisis, are going to be the
upholders of the America which they founded. Join hands North, South, East and
West, to proclaim anew that human brotherhood, our ideal for centuries past,
shall yet pervade America, shall yet acknowledge the Fatherhood of God, and no
matter who tries to tear down that ideal now, we, Masons, Patriots, believers in
the destiny of our country, will fight to uphold that which has been won, and
make right and truth and justice prevail for all men - our Brothers.
------o-----
DUTY
BY BRO. N.W.J. HAYDON, ONTARIO
Behold now Duty. How austere thou art.
To those who keep thy light shining within their souls
Thy gifts are sorrows deep, and joys so keen
They seem to pierce the heart.
Thy flowing robe's ensanguined with spent lives
Of martyrs, patriots, toilers, young and old.
Thy hood, of heaven's own blue - thy native place -
Is all bestrewed with flashing gems,
The tears of agony endured at thy behest.
Oh Duty; how hardly may we win to thy serenity,
Thy storm-encircled peace, how barred from man;
Pain at the heart and trembling at the knee,
Tears that burn to flow and lips white with resolve,
And cries unuttered, heard of God alone,
Then, above all, a soul that smiles and will not
Let its woes be known.
Surely thou art that World's Desire of old,
And we, like Ulysses, will meet the hidden swords
And risk the all-restraining grip of death
That we may gaze, unhindered, on thy face.
-----o-------
PARTNERS HERE
If you have made the fortune of the soul
Your heart will smile as life collects its toll,
And as you hand it out to bless and cheer
'Twill say to you, well done, we're partners here!
- L.B.M.
-----o-----
We do not count a man's years, until he has nothing else to
count
- Emerson.
AMERICANIZATION WORK
IN CINCINNATI
BY BRO. JOHN LEWIN,
MCLEISH, OHIO
A FEW YEARS ago there
stood over in the Mohawk District of Cincinnati, Ohio, a large tenement house of
four stories built like a flatiron, overcrowded with foreigners sleeping eight
and ten in a room, on the ground floor a saloon known as "Rosen's Cafe." The
neighborhood was a tough one and it was hardly safe for a stranger to venture at
night into the purlieus of the old Mohawk lest perchance he fall foul of the
Mohawk Gang, a band of young American Apaches possessed of slight sympathy even
for the curious investigator.
Presently came the war
time and our attention was more earnestly directed to the needs and conditions
of the foreign-born within our midst. The vanquishment of John Barleycorn
compelled many a dispenser of wet goods to retire from business and whoever
"Rosen" was, he too, followed the large army of ex-bonifaces, and the flatiron
building, bereft of its liquid and gambling attractions, soon emptied itself and
stood a silent monument of the days when the working man gambled and drank his
week's wages away on the one Saturday night which represented his heaven.
Downtown in the big
skyscrapers a little band of men representing all the civic organizations of
Cincinnati had formed themselves into an Americanization Executive Committee
with the objective of developing a semblance of Americanism among the large
foreign population of the city. The problem confronting them was a formidable
one. Of "enemy-aliens" - Germans, Austrians and Hungarians - there was a
plentitude in Cincinnati. Of Roumanians, Czecho-Slovaks, Syrians, Serbians,
Italians and Russians, veritable armies were scattered in different parts of the
city, many of them hitherto utterly neglected, living in overcrowded
habitations, unable to speak any language but their own, victims of consequent
exploitation and injustice, shunted from pillar to post with little outlook for
the future but a reversion to even more trying conditions.
The first task of the
Americanization Executive Committee was the accomplishment of a thorough survey
of Cincinnati's foreign-born by volunteer workers under the supervision of Dr.
Randall J. Condon, Superintendent of Public Schools and Chairman of the
Committee. This very thorough combing process definitely located the various
foreign groups, - the Roumanians, Serbians and Hungarians in the heart of the
Mohawk, the Russians, over a thousand and mostly of Jewish persuasion farther
downtown about Clinton, Richmond, Barr, Ninth and other west-end streets; the
Syrians in the neighborhood of the river front, and Pearl and Third Sts.; the
Italians along Sixth Street and up into Kenton and Boone Sts., and so on, until
one could glance at the card index compiled by the Committee and pick out his
foreign group and individual at will.
Money was not wanting.
The Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and other Civic organizations practically
poured their contributions into the War Chest of the Council of Social Agencies,
providing funds for seventy different eleemosynary institutions and making
liberal allotment therefrom to the work of the Americanization Executive
Committee. With Dr. Condon's cooperation, night classes were formed in the
public schools teaching English, Civics, American History, Federal, State and
Municipal Governmental Principles, and above all, Americanism. The foreign born
had been discovered in Cincinnati.
The classes were
crowded. Some of the finest public schools in the city were at night buzzing
beehives, for the foreign born. Splendidly competent teachers gave of their very
best, imbued with enthusiasm at the task before them.
Still the
Americanization Executive Committee was far from satisfied. Closer inspection of
our guests from overseas had demonstrated that the foreigner is not such a bad
fellow after all when you know him and break beneath the crust of his reserve.
Once win his confidence and he will meet you half way. Convince him that there
is something better ahead than the endless drudgery and exploitation of which he
has been more than once a victim, and perhaps before you anticipate, he will
have abandoned his dream of home-going and conclude that America after all is
the best place in the world to live in, has more to offer for the individual,
and by becoming a near-American his future assures an independence, and
well-being quite impossible of attainment overseas. You have discovered a
prospective American citizen.
It was the very worth-whileness
of work among the foreign born that led the Americanization Executive Committee
to the conclusion that these folks ought to have a club-house of their own, a
hospitality house as it were, where group might meet group, old-world racial
antipathies be quite forgotten, and Hungarian and Serb, Italian and Austrian,
German and American, Roumanian and Russian, foregather under one roof and enjoy
in common some of the things America has to offer from her plentitude. And so
behold what was once Rosen's Cafe, dispenser of forgetfulness and instructor in
craps, now a remodelled and up-to-date community center, on the ground floor an
auditorium, a bathing plant, a men's lounging room and kitchen, above stairs a
poolroom, ladies' rest room, music room, library, and director's offices. Some
transformation this from the halcyon days of Rosen.
The first year's
expense of The American House was approximately $13,900, a mere bagatelle when
you consider just how many of Cincinnati's foreign born became acquainted, not
alone with themselves, but also some very representative Americans. Friendships
were cemented in the little tea-room when the leaders of the different groups
came as guests to meet the Americanization Executive Committee who had made this
big clubhouse a reality. Some of the finest ladies of the Queen City of the West
came from the suburbs to meet these new found friends and their wives,
established a calling acquaintance in the homes of the foreign born, sat beside
them in the big auditorium, appeared with their husbands in the big Federal
Court Room on naturalization days, and after the Judge had given them the glad
hand of fellowship and citizenship, pinned upon the lapels of their coats the
little American flags which showed them to all the world to be "one of us."
Much was accomplished
in the first year of existence of The American House. Much remains to be done.
We have but touched the crust.
An idea of our
activities may be gleaned from a recent report. In February we had ten
entertainments all by high class volunteer talent, each followed by substantial
refreshments, practically donated. There were two especial celebrations of
Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays with very excellent addresses by prominent
local officials, followed by movies. A class in Citizenship and History is in
session each Sunday afternoon from three to five o'clock, for those who cannot
attend night school and yet would learn, taught by a young University man. Two
sessions in English are given on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 7:30 to 9:30
o'clock. A mother's Sewing Class, Crochet Class, an American House Men's Club,
international in membership, an American House Orchestra of seventeen pieces,
all made up of kiddies splendidly trained, a Betsy Ross Club of neighborhood
women - these are only a few of our activities. In the daytime we handle the
individual cases. A Russian daddy wants to bring his three children from that
dismal land of unrest. He has not seen them for fifteen years. We are trying our
best to help him get them across. A German has paid $1,400.00 for a mythical
piece of land for which the man who collected in weekly installments has refused
to surrender the deed. A volunteer lawyer is handling the case. Numerous
individuals want to go back home. We make
their preparation as easy as possible. Others we instruct in how to get their
first papers, how to complete the process.
A young Roumanian
Lieutenant, with an A. B. and E. E. is stranded in Cincinnati. We find him a job
in a high class industrial plant here, twenty minutes after his appearance, also
find him a place to eat and sleep in a private home. Quick action this. Our
daytime is devoted to the individual and it is through this personal contact and
the making of a friend that we are able to impress upon him the importance of
studying English, the first requisite for the future American in later studying
Civics and good government, and then qualifying fully for that greatest thing in
the world, American citizenship.
Ours is a hard job.
Sometimes we fell pretty pessimistic, for it is a constant grind from nine A. M.
to nine P. M., but then when your foreign born American friends drift into the
auditorium and evince their profound approbation of the program you have been at
pains to procure, when the women with their shawls come crowding into the
evening classes and want to stay until ten or later, it is a downright
satisfaction to feel that your clientele are interested.
Yes, the foreigner has
been discovered in Cincinnati.
THE ROYAL ORDER OF SCOTLAND
BY BRO. CHARLES S. LOBINGIER, CHINA
The Royal Order of Scotland occupies, in Scotch Masonry, a
place corresponding to the Order of the Temple (Knights Templar) in the
so-called York Rite of American Masonry. Each is the culminating order of its
respective rite and each is open to those only who have received the degrees of
symbolic lodge and chapter. Moreover, while their legends and symbolism differ
widely, each is largely a Christian order.
Indeed the legend of the first degree (Heredom of
Kilwinning) of the Royal Order, carries it back to the Culdees who introduced
Christianity into Scotland; while the legend of its other degree (Rosy Cross)
connects it with Robert Bruce and the gory field of Bannockburn where Masonic
soldiers, who fought under that famous king, are alleged to have earned from him
the reward of Knighthood in the form of this Order which they were privileged in
their Grand Lodge to pass on to their successors.
The battle of Bannockburn was fought on June 24 (Summer St.
John's Day), 1314, just a year after the widespread persecutions of the Templars
had culminated in the tragic death, at the stake, of their last Grand Master,
Jacques de Molai, "on a little island of the Seine" in Paris. There are other
legends which connect these two events and which tell of Templars who fled from
those persecutions to Scotland, joined the army of Robert Bruce and helped him
to win his great victory.
Passing, however, to quote "our Masonic Thucy-dides" (1) .
. . from fable to fact (and the Royal Order (2) has probably no more than its
share, among the high grade orders, of fable) the tradition which connects it
with the Masonry of France appears to have a basis of fact. For Gould traces
the Royal Order to an English Provincial Grand Chapter existing before 1750 of
which he says that "there can be little if any doubt that it was an echo of
French Scots Masonry"; (3) while another learned authority (4) has expressed the
opinion that the parent English Grand Chapter "was an offshoot of the Emperors'
Rite of Perfection or Heredom."
CONNECTION WITH THE SCOTTISH RITE
As both of these phases of eighteenth-century French
Masonry were forerunners (5) of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, it will
be seen how close is the connection in origin between the latter and the Royal
Order of Scotland. This is further illustrated by resemblances in the rituals,
especially the phraseology, and it was doubtless that historic connection which
attracted the great Masonic student, Albert Pike, and led him to establish the
Royal Order of Scotland in the United States and to become its first Provincial
Grand Master there. For the same reason the Scottish Rite student of today will
find more of interest in these quaint and curious degrees (6) of the Royal
Order, and is better equipped to understand and appreciate them, than the
devotees of any other Rite. In the United States the Provincial Grand Masters
following Albert Pike, have continued to be Scottish Rite dignitaries (7) and
candidates are rarely if ever received into the Royal Order there who are not 32
degree Masons. The Provincial Grand Lodge of the United States assembles
annually; in the odd years at the same time and place as the Supreme Council for
the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, and in the even years with that
of the Northern Jurisdiction, thus keeping in close touch with the leaders of
the Rite throughout the country. The degrees of the Royal Order are conferred
only while a Supreme Council is in session, and the participants in the work, as
well as the candidates, are active and usually prominent Scottish Rite Masons.
But by the transplantation of the Royal Order to the Philippines the Scottish
Rite Masons here who are eligible will have the opportunity of receiving its
degrees at home - a privilege not enjoyed by their brethren of the United
States.
EXPANSION
According to Gould (8) the Royal Order took root in
Scotland after the middle of the eighteenth century. In legend and symbolry it
is still Scotch and appeals no less strongly for that reason to thousands of
American and other Masons whose ancestry harks back to the "bonnie braes" of
Caledonia. (9) The King of Scotland is acclaimed as hereditary Grand Master (in
succession to Robert Bruce) and at every Royal Order meeting a chair is kept
vacant in the east for him. Traditionally, too, the Order was composed at first
entirely of Scotchmen and limited to sixty-three, (10) evidently as the product
of the sacred numbers 9 and 7. But this, if anything more than tradition, did
not long continue, for as early as 1786 a Provincial Grand Lodge was erected in
France (11) which, within a quarter of a century, came to comprise twenty-six
subordinate lodges and chapters, including two in the French colonies, two in
Italy and one in Belgium. (12)
Other Provincial Grand Lodges have since been erected as
follows:
Glasgow and West of Scotland 1859
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince
Edward Island 1863
The Open Ports of China and the Colony
of Hong Kong 1865
Western India 1870
London and the Metropolitan Counties
1872
Lancashire and Cheshire 1874
Ontario and Quebec 1875
United States of America 1877
Aberdeenshire 1883
Natal 1885
Yorkshire 1886
Northumberland, Durham, and
Cumberland 1893
Cape Colony 1893
Canton of Geneva 1893
In addition to the foregoing there are Provincial Grand
Lodges of Hongkong and South China and of the Straits Settlements while a
Provincial Grand Lodge of the Philippines has just been constituted. Thus the
Royal Order has spread to nearly every continent, encircling the globe and, from
a national organization in a small country, has become more cosmopolitan,
probably, than any other branch of Masonry except the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite. Like the premier Grand Lodge of England that of the Royal Order
has its branches in many lands, but unlike the former the latter retains its
direct connection and control as regards all the bodies which have emanated from
it. As the Provincial Grand Master of the United States observed in his address
at the dinner above referred to, the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order is the only
grand body of Great Britain which now exercises authority over a Masonic body in
the United States. And this unique position enables it to establish and
preserve a connection between Scotch Masonry and that of other countries. Nay
more, in the Far East it is thus afforded a special opportunity, as the
connecting link between the Scotch and American crafts, to use its good offices
toward removing the unfortunate misunderstanding which has temporarily - let us
hope no more- estranged the governing bodies of Capitular Masonry in the two
countries.
That would be an achievement worth while and that alone
would justify the extension of the Royal Order to the Philippines. But it is
hoped also thereby to render available here those rewards for Masonic service
which Bro. Fensch, in the article already quoted, mentions as being offered in
certain other provinces. "Indeed," he says, "at the present time members of the
Royal Order of Scotland in the British colonies of China and South Africa, and
possibly some of the other Provincial Grand Lodges, are given the prestige and
honours usually accorded to Masons of the 33 degree and highest degree of the
Scottish Rite." But these provinces, he further says, it must be remembered,
"restrict the membership to . . . those who have become distinguished in Masonic
work in the Orient."
PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF THE PHILIPPINES
The charter for a Provincial Grand Lodge of the Philippines
was issued some time since but no action was taken thereunder until the writer
had visited the United States and ascertained from Provincial Grand Master,
George M. Moulton, of the Provincial Grand Lodge of the United States, that such
a course would be agreeable to him. Both he and the other officers of that
Grand Lodge manifested a broad and truly Masonic attitude in the matter,
recognizing that it was entirely within the discretion of the Grand Lodge at
Edinburgh and that, while the Philippines are American territory, their distance
renders it more convenient and conducive to the welfare of the order to
establish a Provincial Grand Lodge there.
Such a generous attitude having removed all obstacles the
event was auspiciously consummated on the evening of March 15, 1920, at the new
Masonic Temple in Manila. The two degrees of Heredom of Kilwinning and Rosy
Cross were conferred in full, and in the interval between them the company
repaired to one of Manila's famous restaurants, near by, where a substantial
repast, marked by much good fellowship, was partaken of.
The charter was then read and the newly obligated members
requested to express their choice for officers by formal ballot. The charter
left their selection to the Provincial Grand Master but it was deemed better for
the new body, and more calculated to start it with enthusiasm, to invite a
formal expression from the members. The balloting was accompanied by much good
feeling, and the officers chosen include some of the most active and prominent
members of the Craft in the Philippines. Thus the Deputy Grand Master is a 33
degree Mason and is now Junior Grand Warden of the symbolic Grand Lodge of the
Philippines of which body also the new Provincial Senior Grand Warden of the
Royal Order is a Past Grand Master and at present, Grand Secretary. The roster
of officers below Provincial Grand Master is as follows:
Frederic H. Stevens, Provincial Dep. Grand Master. Newton
C. Comfort, Provincial Grand Sen. Warden. J. Frank Brown, Provincial Grand
Junior Warden. Warren W. Weston, Provincial Grand Secretary. Aziz T. Hashin,
Provincial Grand Treasurer Eugene A. Perkins, Provincial Grand Chaplain. Victor
Hall, Provincial Grand Sword Bearer. Amos D. Haskell, Provincial Grand Banner
Bearer. John J. Riehl, Provincial Grand Steward Frank Towle, Provincial Grand
Steward. Elmer Jeen, Provincial Grand Guarder.
After the ballots had been taken the principal officers
were, installed and formal proclamation was made that the Provincial Grand Lodge
of the Philippines had now been constituted. Some business was then transacted,
not the least important of which was the unanimous adoption of a resolution of
thanks to M.'. W.'. James H. Osborne, Past Provincial Grand Master for the open
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