The Builder Magazine 

December 1922 - Volume VIII - Number 12 


Albert Gallatin Mackey 

BY BRO. ROBERT I. CLEGG. OHIO 

BORN AT Charleston, South Carolina, on March 12, 1807, this scholarly brother 
lived to the age of 74 years, dying at the Hygeia Hotel at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, 
June 21, 1881. He was buried by his bereaved family and sorrowing brethren at 
Washington, D.C., on Sunday, June 26, with all the solemnity of the several 
ceremonies of the Masonic Rites wherein he had so long been active in leadership. 


Graduating with honours at the Charleston Medical College in 1834, Dr. Mackey 
entered immediately the busy practice of his profession which chiefly occupied his 
time until 1854 when his literary and Masonic labours engrossed his efforts. During 
the Civil War Dr. Mackey was a Union adherent, and President Johnson appointed 
him Collector of the Port. Some active interest was taken by him in polities and in a 
contest for senatorial honours he was defeated by Senator Sawyer in the canvass. 
Following this experience Dr. Mackey removed to Washington, D. C., in 1870. 


In St. Andrews lodge, No. 10, at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1841, Dr. Mackey 
was initiated, passed and raised. Soon thereafter he affiliated with Solomon's Lodge 
No. 1, of the same city, becoming Worshipful Master in December, 1842. He became 
Grand Secretary that year and held this office until 1867, for many years preparing 
the reports of the Foreign Correspondence Committee of the Grand Lodge. He was 
one of the founder members in the formation of Landmark Lodge, No. 76, in the year 
1851. 


Advanced and exalted in Capitular Freemasonry during the winter of 1841-1842, he 
was elected High Priest in December, 1 844; was also elected Deputy Grand High 
Priest in 1848 and successively re-elected in that position until 1855. In this year and 



every year thereafter to 1867 he was elected as Grand High Priest of his State. 
Elected General Grand High Priest in 1859, he continued in that office until 1868. 


Dubbed and created a Knight Templar in South Carolina Commandery No. 1, in 
1842, he was elected Eminent Commander in 1844, later being honoured as a Past 
Grand Warden of the Grand Encampment of the United States. 


Crowned a Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Thirty-third and last Degree in 
1844, he was for many years Secretary-General of the Supreme Council, Southern 
Masonic Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. 


Editorially he conducted for many years the Southern and Western Masonic 
Miscellany. For two years he was editor-in-chief of the Masonic Quarterly Review. 
In 1859 Dr. Mackey became editor of the Department of Masonic Miscellany in the 
American Freemason, and for three years, beginning in 1872, he published Mackey's 
National Freemason. 


Becoming a contributor to the Voice of Masonry in 1875, Dr. Mackey continued 
actively his writings in that publication until 1878 when his failing health completely 
checked his further labourist for that periodical. 


Prolific as an author his books included the History of Freemasonry in seven 
volumes, the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry in two volumes, Symbolism of 
Freemasonry, Masonic Jurisprudence, Manual of the Fodge, Book of the Chapter, 
Principles of Masonic Faw, Fexicon of Freemasonry and the Mystic Tie. 


After Dr. Mackey, located at Washington D.C., he affiliated with Fafayette Fodge, 
No. 19, Fafayette Chapter, No. 5, and Washington Commandery, No. 1. 



The funeral services in Washington on Sunday, June 26, 1881, were begun at All 
Souls Church, Unitarian, of which Dr. Mackey was a member, and were conducted by 
the pastor. Then followed the ceremonies of a Lodge of Sorrow, Rose Croix Chapter, 
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Masonic Jurisdiction, and were in 
charge of the venerable General Albert Pike and his associate officers. 


The long white flowing hair of the patriarchal Sovereign Grand Commander endowed 
him with a crowned glory as he from the pulpit uttered the solemn words over the 
dead body of his old friend. Their intimate fraternal relations quickened in the 
speaker a multitude of memories and he was deeply affected. Brother Pike's stem lips 
trembled with emotion many times, especially when he descended from the pulpit, 
took the flaming torch in his hand, waved it, and repeatedly summoned with his loud 
resounding words "Brother, we mourn for thee; we call upon thee to answer us. Dost 
thou hear the call?" 


Just as Brother Pike said these words, a ray of sunshine from the window at the west 
streamed in splendour across the church. His hoary head was thereby aflame with a 
glowing halo of light like unto the vision of some sturdy stately saint of old. The tang 
of sorrow in his tones as he continued sadly with the words of the ritual - "Our 
Brother answers not our call" - heightened with the tinge of assurance the striking 
illusion. 


The remains were interred in Glenwood Cemetery with the rites of the Symbolic 
Lodge in charge of Most Worshipful Noble D. Larner, Grand Master of the District of 
Columbia. 


Dr. Mackey as a lecturer had nationally a deservedly high reputation. He was always 
most interesting and instmctive. Possessing a very pleasing address, he could deeply 
impress the favourable attention he invariably awakened in an audience. As an after- 
dinner speaker he was declared to be second to none in the United States, his keen 
wit, lively repartee, and remarkable anecdotal powers causing his society to be sought 
and solicited on every possible occasion. 



Of stalwart and commanding presence and richly cultured discourse Dr. Mackey was 
in close personal charm at once gentle and dignified, acute in his warm practical 
sympathies for all suffering humanity, and deeply dowered with a strong faculty for 
friendship firm as the hills everlasting. 


The intense esteem his friends held of Dr. Mackey is well shown by the official letter 
sent out at his death by the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Masonic 
Jurisdiction of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. General Albert Pike wrote this 
appreciative message: 


"Sickness and old age have brought the ending of his days to the Dean of the Supreme 
Council, its Secretary-General, Brother Albert Gallatin Mackey. Born at Charleston, 
in South Carolina, on the 12th of March, 1807, made a Mason there, it is said, in the 
year 1 84 1 ; he became a member of the Supreme Council and Secretary General in 
1844, and continued to be both until his death at Fortress Monroe, in Virginia, on the 
20th of June, 1881. 


"Brother Mackey had lived all his life among gentlemen, and had the manners and 
habits of a gentleman. Tall, erect, of spare but vigorous frame, his somewhat harsh 
but striking features were replete with intelligence and amiability; he conversed well, 
and was liked as a genial and companionable man, of a cheerful, tolerant and kindly 
nature, who, if he had quarrels with individuals, had none with the world. Idolized by 
his wife and children, he loved them devotedly, and suffered intensely when, one 
after another, his two intelligent and amiable daughters died. He had many friends, 
and made enemies, as men of strong will and positive convictions will always surely 
do. He plotted no harm against any one, and sought no revenge, even when he did 
not forgive, not being of a forgiving race for he was a McGregor, having kinship with 
Rob Roy. 


"Masonry will not soon lose as great a man, and she may well put dust upon her head 
and wear sackcloth in her lodges, where, in Masonry, his heart always was. 



"Of course, as he grew old, he had his crosses and troubles, and fortune was not kind 
to him. Adversity may be profitable; but the world goes too hardly with too many of 
us; and Sallust truly says: 


'"In grief and sorrows, death is a rest from troubles and not a misfortune.' 


"A great man hath fallen in Israel; and, in the words of Pushmataha, the Chahta Chief, 
it is like the falling of a huge oak in the woods. The fall will be heard afar off, and 
the sound be re-echoed from many and far-off lands. 


"Upon the reading of this letter in the Bodies of our Obedience, the altars and 
working tools will be draped in black and the brethren will wear the proper badge of 
mourning during the space of sixty days. And may our Father which is in Heaven 
have you always in his holy keeping." 


At a Special Communication of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, the 
following Memorial was presented by a Committee headed by Brother Charles F. 
Stansbury: 


"Our illustrious Brother, Albert Gallatin Mackey, is no more! He died at Fortress 
Monroe, Va., on the 20th day of June, 1881, at the venerable age of 74, and was 
buried at Washington on Sunday, June 26th, 1881, with the highest honours of the 
Craft, all Rites and Orders of Masonry uniting in the last sad services over his 
remains. 


"The announcement of his death has carried a genuine sentiment of sorrow wherever 
Freemasonry is known. His ripe scholarship, his profound knowledge of Masonic law 
and usage, his broad views of Masonic philosophy, his ceaseless and invaluable 
literary labourist in the service of the Order, his noble ideal of its character and 



mission, as well as his genial personal qualities and his lofty character, had united to 
make him personally known and widely respected and beloved by the Masonic world. 


"While this Grand Lodge shares in the common sorrow of the Craft everywhere at 
this irreparable loss, she can properly lay claim to a more intimate and peculiar sense 
of bereavement, inasmuch as our illustrious brother had been for many years an active 
member of this body, Chairman of the Committee on Jurisprudence, and an advisor 
ever ready to assist our deliberations with his knowledge and counsel. 


"In testimony of our affectionate respect for his memory the Grand Lodge jewels, and 
insignia will be appropriately draped, and its members wear the usual badge of 
mourning for thirty days. A memorial page of our proceedings will also be dedicated 
to the honour of his name. 


"We extend to his family [a widow and three sons survived Dr. Mackey] the 
assurance of our sincere and respectful sympathy, and direct that an attested copy of 
this minute be transmitted to them." 


— o — 


TRIAL AND CONVICTION OF AMERICAN MASONIC FEDERATION 
LEADERS 


BY BRO. CHARLES C. HUNT, DEPUTY GRAND SECRETARY, IOWA 


The present article concludes Brother Hunt's account of the false claims, the 
indictment, trial and conviction of The American Masonic Federation, with 
headquarters at Salt Lake City, of which Mathew McBlain Thomson was president. 



Brother Hunt's four articles, the first of which appeared in THE BUILDER for 
September, comprise a complete record of all the important points in the case. 


I HAVE already described the false claims made by the American Masonic 
Federation to Scottish Rite and other Masonic prerogatives in preceding accounts of 
the trial and conviction of Mathew McBlain Thomson, president of that organization 
of spurious "Masonry." The reader is requested to consult THE BUILDER for 
September, October, and November. In the present instance I shall give an account of 
the trial held at Salt Lake City, Utah, early in May of this year. 


Three distinguished Scotch Masons agreed to accept a subpoena and testify for the 
Government: they were Brothers David Reid, Joseph Inglis, and John A. Forrest. 
David Reid is Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Joseph Inglis is 
Provincial Grand Master of Kincardineshire; also Past Senior Grand Warden of the 
Grand Lodge; Past Master of both the Rose Croix Chapter and Consistory; and Past 
Grand Prior of the Knights Templar, and a Thirty-Second degree Mason. John A. 
Forrest is Grand Secretary of the Royal Order of Scotland; Past "Provincial Grand 
Master of Midlothian; Past Master of his Rose Croix Chapter and Consistory, and a 
Thirty-Second degree Mason. 


These brothers testified that Mother Kilwinning Lodge never granted a charter to 
work any except the Craft degrees, and that none of the so-called higher degrees 
originated in Scotland. David Reid testified that he was a member of Mother 
Kilwinning Lodge, and that she had never granted to any of her daughter lodges 
power to charter other lodges, and in fact Kilwinning was the only Scotch lodge that 
ever had chartering power. Brothers Inglis and Reid both testified that Mother 
Kilwinning Lodge kept a copy of every charter issued by her and that she had never 
granted one to a lodge in France, as Thomson claimed she had done. 


Thomson was asked to show "a history, any place" which supplies the link of granting 
a charter from Mother Kilwinning Lodge to the Mother Lodge of St. John, of 
Marseilles, France, but he could not do so. 



Brothers Reid and Inglis also testified that the Grand Council of Rites was a very 
small body with no reputation, Masonically, in Scotland. Brother Inglis first heard of 
it in 1880 and Brother Reid in 191 1. In 1912 it was practically declared clandestine 
by the Grand lodge of Scotland, and her members forbidden to affiliate with it. 
Thereupon, Peter Spence, who had signed Thomson's Patent, withdrew from it. 


In 1914 Thomson and Robert Jamieson were expelled from Masonry by the Grand 
Lodge of Scotland on the charge of conferring clandestine Masonic degrees. 


On cross-examination Thomson was asked to name a Scotch history that anywhere 
mentioned the Grand Council of Rites, and he could not do so. He was also 
compelled to acknowledge that the leading Scotch historian, D. Murray Lyon, did not 
mention this so-called Grand Council. 


Thomson claimed to have been made a Mason in a lodge which had been chartered by 
Melrese St. Johns Lodge, but David Reid testified that this lodge never chartered 
daughter lodges, and that the lodge from which Thomson claimed a charter, if it ever 
existed, was clandestine; that Thomson did not become a Mason until after he was 
healed in 1889, in St. James Lodge No. 125. 


In this connection the following extracts from the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of 
Scotland are interesting: 


From Proceedings of meeting of April 29, 1880: 


"Memorial anent the clandestine introduction of Mathew Thomson into Lodge 
operative, Ayr, No. 138, and the issuing of a diploma in his favour. 



"The Committee having considered the whole case, Find that Mathew Thomson is not 
a Freemason, and that he could not therefore be affiliated to the Lodge Operative, 

Ayr: Find that certain of the Office-Bearers of that lodge knew that Mr. Thomson was 
not a member of the Order when they pretended to affiliate him: Find that the return 
made by the lodge to Grand Lodge under date June 12, 1876, certifying that Mr. 
Thomson was Entered, Passed and Raised in that lodge, was false and fraudulent: 

Find that lodge has produced no regular books, and that such as have been produced 
are in many places written in pencil and grossly irregular, and contain no evidence of 
Mr. Thomson's pretended affiliation: Therefore recommend Grand Lodge to instruct 
the name of the said Mathew Thomson to be deleted from the Register of Intrants, 
and ordain him to deliver up the Diploma of Membership issued on 12th June 1876; 
and further recommend that Grand Lodge suspend the Lodge Operative, Ayr, No. 

138, and debar it from meeting for Masonic purposes until it is the pleasure of the 
Grand Lodge to withdraw its suspension. Further, instruct the Grand Secretary to call 
for delivery of the charter and minute and other books of the lodge, if any such exist, 
and retain the same in his possession." 


From Proceedings of Meeting of June 24, 1880: 


"Grand Secretary produced the diploma which had been issued to Mr. Mathew 
Thomson, under a false return in name of the Lodge Operative, Ayr, No. 138, in June 
1876, and tabled a letter from the Lodge St. James, Ayr, No. 125, anent the admission 
of the said Mathew Thomson by affiliation or otherwise, as Grand Committee may 
direct. Remitted to the Petitions and Complaints Committee to consider and report." 


From Proceedings of Meeting of July 29, 1880: 


"On the recommendation of the Sub-Committee on Petitions and Complaints, Grand 
Secretary was instructed to direct the Lodge St. James, Newton-on- Ayr, No. 125, as 
to the admission of Mr. Mathew Thomson referred to in the minute of Grand 
Committee of date 24th June last, - and on being satisfied that the conditions on 



which the applicant's admission is authorized have been complied with, to issue a new 
diploma to the said Mathew Thomson." 


Thus it is seen that this is not the first time that Thomson has been concerned with 
clandestine Masonry. 


In March 1911 Thomson published the following account of a visit paid by him to 
David Reid, Grand Secretary of Scotland: 


"From London we went to Edinburgh, where, we visited the Grand Secretary in the 
temporary offices of the Grand Lodge in Charlotte Square, the Grand Lodge Hall 
being closed for repairs and enlargement. We sent in our card as President of the 
A.M.F. and were received as such and had a long and pleasant talk with him, in the 
course of which we informed him of conditions here, conditions which made 
necessary the formation of the A.M.F. , explained to him the source from which we 
derived our authority, showed him our charters and explained to him our aims and 
objects; showed him from our publications that we made no claim whatever to have 
authority from or connection with the Grand Lodge of Scotland; that we did claim 
Scottish ancestry, but from a source more ancient than the Grand Lodge, namely from 
the Mother Lodge Kilwinning, through her son, the Chevalier Ramsay, through whom 
the degrees went to the Scottish Mother Lodge of Marseilles, from thence through the 
Lodge Polar Star, established in New Orleans in 1794, to the Supreme Council of 
Louisiana; from it to the Grand Lodge Inter-Montana, which is the foundation of the 
A.M.F. 


"Brother Reid informed us (as we had been informed before) that the only object that 
the Grand Lodge of Scotland had in the matter was representation made to her that an 
officer of Grand Lodge (Brother Peter Spence) was granting Blue Lodge charters to 
parties in America; and that the A.M.F. claimed to work by authority from the Grand 
Lodge of Scotland; the first charge had been disproved by Brother Spence, and what I 
said now had disposed of the latter." 



SCORED AS A FALSEHOOD 


Brother Reid testified that the only true part of this account was the fact of the call. 
The interview was very short, about two minutes only. He had remained standing 
throughout. The only other person present was Brother Joseph Inglis. Thomson had 
not shown any charters or made any explanation of his aims or objects, neither had he 
shown any publications or made any explanations of his claims. Brother Inglis 
testified that the conversation was very formal; that Mr. Reid never sat down and 
practically bowed him out. He was asked if the meeting was a courteous or 
discourteous one. He replied: "It was cold, but courteous." 


On cross-examination Thomson was asked in regard to this interview, and admitted 
that the conversation lasted about ten minutes, that he had shown no charters, but had 
shown his authority, by handing Mr. Reid a copy of his magazine, which explained 
his authority, but he could not tell which copy it was or what article he referred to as 
giving the authority. On being recalled, Brothers Reid and Inglis testified that 
Thomson had left no magazine or documents of any kind whatever. 


Bergers, one of the defendants, testified that in 1913 he went to Europe to investigate 
for himself to find out what he could about the organization, and how it was regarded 
there. He visited the Grand Council of Rites, the meeting of which was postponed 
one month so that he could be there. At this meeting there were twenty-eight persons 
present, and the meeting lasted about three or four hours in the afternoon. 


He went to Ayr and visited St. James Lodge there. The members of the lodge had not 
been informed of his coming but the Master called a meeting after his arrival. In 
answer to the question: "How did he call the members together?" Bergera replied: 


"They were called by telephone, where I saw several other brothers, and they gave me 
an introduction. They told me it was the Master of St. James 125, and they said - 1 
said, I desire to visit the lodge, and they said 'very well' they were going to have their 



regular meeting that night and also they were working the Craft degrees on one of the 
candidates." 


However, the meeting was held in the afternoon, instead of at night, to accommodate 
some visitors who wished to return home that night. 


Bergera was in Scotland ten days and visited two lodges. The second lodge was the 
lodge in Kilmarnock, which met in a building with the name "Kilmarnock Lodge" 
over the door. Brothers Reid and Inglis testified that there were four lodges in 
Kilmarnock, but none of them with that name; that there was no building there with 
the name "Kilmarnock Lodge" above the door, and that the building in which the 
lodges met had simply the inscription "Masonic Hall." 


Bergera testified that he had not visited, nor attempted to visit, the Grand Lodge of 
Scotland. He spent five days in London, and visited one lodge there, but he did not 
visit nor attempt to visit the Grand Lodge of England. He spent nine or ten days in 
Paris and visited one lodge, but had not visited nor attempted to visit the Grand Orient 
or Grand Lodge of France. Thus, although he testified that his sole purpose in going 
to Europe was to investigate the standing of his organization, and he spent several 
days in each place, he visited only two lodges in Scotland, one in London and one in 
Paris, and did not attempt to go anywhere where authoritative information could be 
had. 


Thomson gave considerable space in his magazine to the Proceedings of the National 
Masonic Congress, in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1920, supposed to be composed of the 
representatives of the Masonic powers of the world, and of which he was elected 
President. On cross-examination he could name but eight people who were present at 
that Congress, and Joseph Inglis testified that none of the powers there represented 
was considered regular by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. 


THOMSON MADE A FORTUNE 



Mention has been made that considerable money was collected by this organization, 
and that Thomson could not, or would not, tell what had become of it. According to 
the testimony, the following fees were charged: 


Grand Lodge Charter 

Election — — $50.00 

Confirmation 25.00 

Lodge Charter 25.00 

Master Mason's Diploma — 5.00 

Mark Master's Diploma 4.00 

Affiliation Diploma 2.50 

Duplicate Diploma 2.00 

Past Master's Diploma 2.50 

Dispensations 5.00 

Catechisms, each degree — .15 


Minimum fee for Craft Degrees, $35.00; of which the lodge received $5.00. 

Minimum fee for higher degrees, Fourth to Thirty-Third, $135.00, of which $25.00 
was for paraphernalia. 


The thirty-three degrees were sometimes given in an hour's time; frequently all of 
them were conferred in one evening. 



There were many other facts brought out in the trial but I have here mentioned only 
the leading ones. From this it will be seen that the Government clearly proved that 
Thomson obtained his members by misrepresenting the facts, both as to his authority 
and regularity, also as to the recognition that his members would receive from 
Masons abroad, and that in the promotion of his scheme the United States mails were 
used. 


The jury brought in a verdict of guilty against each of the defendants on every count 
charged in the indictment. In this connection it is well to remember that neither the 
Judge nor any member of the jury were members of the Masonic fraternity. The 
regular Judge of the Utah District of the United States District Court is a Mason; to 
avoid any charge of prejudice an outside judge, Judge Wade of Iowa, was assigned to 
try the case. In giving his instructions to the jury, among other things, he said: 


"Therefore, gentlemen, as I said in the beginning, this involves no case here before 
this jury as to which of the branches of the Masonic order is legitimate, except in so 
far as that question inheres in the simple questions in this case, which is not a 
question of determining which of these great branches, or minor branches, is right or 
wrong, but the question here is, did these men on trial conspire to commit a fraud on 
their neighbours or on their fellow men? That I will go into more fully. Keep that in 
mind. 


"It is a historic matter of common knowledge that there is an organization known as 
Free Masons or Free and Accepted Masons, or Masons, known for many generations. 
Whether that organization is right or wrong, whether it had conducted its business in 
the right way, whether its spirit is right or wrong, speaking generally, we have 
nothing to do with it. ..." 


"Sometime back, the people of this country, acting through their agents, enacted a 
statute through Congress which said that a man who should conceive and organize a 
conspiracy with others to defraud somebody, and then use the mails to carry out that 
scheme, that man should be punished. Now that is all the Grand Jury in this Court 
did when last year it brought in this indictment. And bear in mind, gentlemen, as I 



tried to impress upon you before, that the action of the Grand Jury must not in any 
manner enter into your consideration in determining the question of guilt. ..." 


"So this indictment was brought in charging these three defendants with having done 
three specific things; combined, organized or maintained a conspiracy, with the intent 
to defraud, and used the mails for carrying out that fraud. That is all. The Grand Jury 
didn't indict anybody here for competing with some other organization of Masonry, 
had nothing to do with those organizations, whatsoever, neither do we. 


"They charged that they conceived a plan to defraud and used the mails to carry it out, 
and that they did that by conspiring together, making an arrangement to carry it out." 


A CASE OF FRAUD 


He then quoted from the indictment, and said: 


"You will observe now from this recital, or these recitals, that this is not a mere case 
of a dispute of title. That is involved in it, but that is not all that is involved in it. It is 
not a mere case of the question as to whether or not they got power under this 
endorsement on this charter from Fouisiana Council. Nor is it solely the question as 
to the standing or authority of the Council of Rites of Scotland. These questions are 
involved, but there are many other questions involved. 


"Of course now, any change in this indictment, which is not proven by the evidence 
must not be considered. I am reading it to try to get to your minds what we are trying 
to settle in this matter. The Government charges in this indictment that these things 
were in the minds and hearts of these people; that they were false, all of them were 
false, though of course it is not essential for the Government to prove that all of them 
were false in order to convict; it is only necessary that they shall prove beyond a 



reasonable doubt that the fraud which they claim they had in mind consisted of some 
one or more of the things which they had conceived, sufficient to constitute a fraud. 


"To illustrate, if somebody sold you a piece of land - or to make it more practical, if 
someone sold you a certain horse, representing to you that he was an expert in the 
genealogy of this horse and that his breeding was of a certain strain on back two or 
three generations, which made it a valuable horse, and he also represented to you that 
the horse had a record upon a lawful track of 2:05 as a trotter, and the man who was 
buying him relied upon these statements, and had no opportunity of testing them out 
to see whether they were true, and later he found that he did have this family tree 
which was valuable, but he also found out that he never made that record at all, that 
was a lie, that would be a fraud by which he induced him to part with his money, 
although only the question of his record was involved in the fraud, the other 
representation being true. 


"So that, even if it were established in a given case where the question of the family 
tree, so to speak, of some society, the Odd Fellows, Masons, Knights of Columbus, 
Elks, whatever it might be, was a certain thing, if that was the only thing alleged, and 
it was not proven that was false, of course there would be no fraud, but if in 
connection with that representation were made other representations with relation to 
the quality of the organization, or character of the organization, the benefits of the 
organization, the thing the man was getting for his money, aside from the question of 
the family tree; if false representations were made which induced him to part with his 
money, that is to say, representations which were wilfully false, then of course there 
would be fraud and the plan to represent these things which were wilfully and 
intentionally false, would constitute the ground for a conviction, if they were within 
the things charged in the indictment . . . . " 


"A false representation may be by word of mouth, it may be by acts, it may be 
silence; it may be by all combined. We consider what effect the particular thing, the 
particular act would naturally have on the mind of the other fellow. To determine 
what the natural effect would be upon the mind of the other fellow we have got to sort 
of look at it from the other fellow's standpoint, and consider the question with 
relation, for instance, to membership in this organization. What did the other fellow 
want the membership for? What did he think he was getting? What did he in fact get? 



Did he get what he bought? If not, was his failure to get what he bought and paid for 
the result of misrepresentations either by word or conduct or act, in writing or orally, 
by the defendants or any of them or any of their authorized agents, authorized to do 
the things that they did? That is this case. 


"As I recall there was evidence here of representation made to parties, witnesses upon 
the stand here, that membership in these organizations opened the doors of the lodge 
rooms of Europe, and all countries, generally speaking, or words to that effect, to the 
member that was sought to join. I am not stating words exactly, and I am only using 
this as illustrating the principles involved. You are the final judges of what the acts 
are. But if a man were induced to enter an organization of any kind upon a 
representation that membership in that organization would grant him affiliation and 
brotherhood relations with some great established, organized, permanent organization 
in South America or Canada or any other country, if that were not true, and the man 
that made the representation knew it was not true, and he made the representation 
with the intention of getting his money, that would be a fraud, even though the 
organization had the right genealogical tree. 


"So, gentlemen, we have an organization here now, composed of a number of 
individuals with organizers employed and sent out, and memberships taken and 
memberships paid for. In any big organization you will find some organizer or some 
agent who at times will not do the right thing. But a wrongful act upon the part of an 
agent or organizer, except insofar as the same was induced or authorized or approved 
by the defendants in this particular case - if it was outside of his regular and 
authorized work, of course it would not be binding upon these defendants, - but 
insofar as you can find from the evidence the scope and power given by these 
defendants knowingly and intentionally to organizers, of course the acts of such 
organizers would be the same as the acts of the defendants. 


"So, gentlemen, you see it is a question as to whether or not the Government has 
proven - they have got to prove that these things were false, the defendants do not 
have to prove that they are true, the burden is on the Government all the way 
through. Has the Government proven any of these charges of intended 
misrepresentation or fraud which they set out in this indictment? If so, was that of 
such a nature or character that it would have carried out - constituted a fraud on the 



person who was induced to join as a member? Now, what the evidence is and what 
these specific things are, you are to determine. 


"I have repeatedly said that a fraud is not a mistake. The law is practical common 
sense. No man was ever convicted of a fraud when he was acting in good faith. A 
man might sue to recover money or land on the ground of mutual mistake but as to a 
criminal offense, a man to be convicted of a fraud must have knowledge, must have 
the wrongful intent and purpose." 


Thomson and his partners in crime were found guilty. In passing sentence Judge 
Wade scored them after the following manner: 


"Nobody can hear this evidence in this case without being convinced, absolutely 
convinced, that this thing has been a fraudulent scheme from the beginning. I can see 
where an ignorant person might find some possible excuse for the methods employed 
in this case. For intelligent people and experienced people to try to convince the 
Court that this organization and this plan and this work that had been going on is on 
the square - it can't be done. 


"Of course now we are living in a time when some of the brightest minds in the 
country are devoting themselves to securing money by short cuts, by taking 
advantage of the gullible for their enterprises. In fact that is one of the dominant 
crimes of the present time. I know of one state in which in the last two years, within 
two, there has been sold over twenty-nine million dollars worth of stock in packing 
houses which were never built, and practically every dollar of the money lost, just by 
shrewd practices, by trying to get the other fellow's money in some way without 
working for it. 


AMERICAN MASONIC FEDERATION A FRAUD 



"Now, of course, after all that was stated in this case from the beginning and all 
through I confess that I was astounded when I heard Mr. Thomson testify that there 
was no pretence, that there was no record anywhere of a charter to Marseilles Lodge, 
on the existence of which lay the right and practically the foundation of all claims of 
legitimacy on that branch of the case and to have him admit that such a lodge existed 
only in tradition (I realize that some things can be proven by tradition, but tradition 
cannot exist with one man, tradition must have, before it has any force as proof - such 
general recognition among men in that particular occupation or relation that it forces 
itself upon the mind as a truth the record of which has been lost) and it was conceded 
on the witness stand that so far as this particular thing was concerned there was no 
record anywhere and no one who was skilled in the history of Masonry had ever met 
any such a tradition so far as the record in this case is concerned, in any history or 
book or pamphlet or anything else outside of this organization. 


"So was I surprised when I found that the Council of Rites of Scotland which had 
been one of the chief points urged by these gentlemen, had no record behind it but a 
few years and it was represented - entirely aside from the question of the origin and 
history of this organization and those that preceded it - it was represented time and 
time again without dispute to these poor devils that were led largely by these 
attractions to an ancient organization and to the rites and rituals of the organization, it 
was represented to them specifically and it has not been denied that by virtue of their 
association with this organization the doors of Masonry the world over were open to 
them outside of the United States, which is of course an absurd claim under the 
evidence in this case. 


"Then the trip that Bergera made to Europe on the investigation, in view of what 
transpired according to his own testimony, has all the appearance of being a scheme 
or plan that he might come back here and state to those whose membership was 
sought his capacity to enter the lodges of Europe to support their claim, that the 
members immediately on getting across the water would have the doors wide open to 
them. 


"And then after making a trip and going to one or two lodges or three under peculiar 
circumstances, in fact never going to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and that was 
included in the representation made, that is to say, all Europe was included, never 



going to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, the Grand Lodge of England and never going 
to the Grand Lodge of France, whatever it is called, and coming back here no doubt to 
back up the representation that membership in this organization was opening the 
doors of all Masonic Orders, all of the regular Masonic Orders in Europe - it was a 
pretence, gentlemen, you can't come to any other conclusion. If Bergera went over 
there for the purpose of confirming what these organizers were representing and 
which is not denied here, he certainly would have gone to the Grand Lodge of 
Scotland or England or France or Germany or somewhere to find out whether the 
doors would be open to these fellows that were joining their ranks. 


"But it is not necessary to recite the details. One cannot listen to this evidence 
without being forced to the conclusion that so far as the representation as to the 
standing and the brotherhood and the association of people with which they would 
become immediately affiliated was concerned, that aside entirely from the genealogy 
of the lodge, nobody can claim that there was any truth in what was said except 
insofar as they had access to certain lodges with which Mr. Thomson through his 
relation had some affiliation. 


"The spectacle of Mr. Thomson going to Switzerland to this great conference, and 
parading afterwards through the journal a conference where eight men from the entire 
world were present - that in itself is sufficient to condemn the whole thing and the 
manner in which this business had been done is sufficient in itself. No pretence here 
on the part of the defendants that this money was kept in any businesslike way for the 
benefit of this organization. What became of it I don't know but there was more than 
a million dollars taken in here, of that there can be no question in view of the prices 
charged for little printed sheets of paper in the form of diplomas and certificates and 
things of that kind, entirely aside from the membership fee. What became of that 
money is not indicated here. The head of this organization testified before the Court 
that he didn't know and in fact had some difficulty in recalling whether there was ever 
an account of the organization in a bank anywhere in the world. 


"As far as the Secretary is concerned, there is no suggestion of a report indicating that 
this business was conducted as an honest organization, not a word. 



"So that, gentlemen, there is only one thing for the Court to do. If it were not for the 
age of Mr. Thomson at this time there would be a long prison sentence, because I 
think he is the chief actor. I think he is more responsible than anyone else. As far as 
Bergera is concerned, of course, I cannot understand at all how a man would presume 
to parade himself as the Treasurer-General of the organization of ten thousand 
members which had received from them in the neighbourhood of a million or more 
dollars and never handle a cent of the money. I cannot understand it at all, that is all, 
that any honest man would allow his name to be used in that connection under such 
condition and the concealment of the methods of doing business and where this 
money went even up to the present time. I cannot comprehend the whole thing. 


"There is only one thing that saves these men a long prison term. I don't feel justified 
in sending any of these men to prison any longer than I do Mr. Thomson. As I say, 
when it comes to this point in a trial of the case, the charity of the law asserts itself. 
Old age and sickness, of course, have a strong appeal to the Court, when it comes to 
the question of a prison term and I think that the District Attorney has been very 
generous in his suggestion. This Court hasn't really any power to impose a penalty 
here which would be adequate punishment for this thing that has been going on when 
we stop to think of the honest fellows who parted with their fifty or seventy-five or a 
hundred and fifty dollars for membership in this organization. So far as the evidence 
in this case is concerned, not one dollar of it was ever used for any of the business of 
the society except to carry on this work of getting members. Not a word of charity or 
charitable fund or anything of that kind before this Court. 


"I am very much inclined to be lenient in all things. I am inclined to look in a 
charitable way upon the mistakes of men, but this thing has in it that deliberateness 
and continuous conduct which sort of overcomes my tendency. 


"Stand up, gentlemen. 


"The judgment of this Court is that each one of you serve a period of two years in 
Fort Leavenworth Prison and each one of you pay a fine of five thousand dollars and 
costs." 



THE POINT OF THE TRIAL 


Before this case went to trial it was not known just what matters the Court would 
require the Government to prove. Thomson's claim as to the regularity of the 
established Masonic institutions before mentioned in the first part of this paper, the 
Government was prepared to disprove, had the Court so ruled. However, the ruling of 
the Court was that the regularity of the established Masonic lodges did not enter into 
this case, and the following named witnesses who had been summoned by the 
Government were not called upon to testify, although they were instructed to be on 
hand in case they were needed, and especially to listen to the testimony offered by the 
defendants' witnesses: Frederick W. Hamilton, Grand Secretary, Grand Lodge of 
Massachusetts; William L. Boyden, Librarian of the Supreme Council, Washington, 
D.C.; Charles A. Conover, General Grand Secretary, General Grand Chapter, R.A.M. 
of the United States; Robert A. Shirrefs, Grand Secretary General, Northern Supreme 
Council; Ossian Lang, Historian, Grand Lodge of New York, and Charles C. Hunt, 
Deputy Grand Secretary, Grand Lodge of Iowa. 


— o — 


KIT CARSON - A MASON OF THE FRONTIER 


BY BRO. F.T. CHEETHAM, NEW MEXICO 


It has often been observed that 1 809 was, of all the years of its century, most prodigal 
in giving to the world great men, for it was during that twelve-month that Lincoln, 
Darwin, Gladstone, Tennyson, Holmes, Poe, Edward Fitzgerald, etc., etc, were bom. 
After reading the following appreciations of Kit Carson ye editor believes that many 
readers will feel inclined to add to the list of illustrious men born in 1809 that of this 
pioneer who, despite the cmdity of his environment and the roughness of his work, 
was a gentleman and a hero. It is high time that Kit Carson was rescued from dime 



novels and schoolboy romances and delivered back to serious history and biography 
where mature men may learn what a towering man he was. Brother Cheetham made 
his researches expressly at the request of THE BUILDER and thereby became 
deserving of our heartiest thanks, which are hereby rendered in full measure. 


WHEN THE WRITER first set out to write a sketch of this worthy brother he was 
confronted by a dearth of reliable information as to Kit Carson's Masonic record that 
rendered the task discouraging. When the question was asked of those few remaining 
brothers in the Craft who knew him they would invariably shrug their shoulders after 
the custom of the country and say, "I don't know." It was not until after a trip was 
made by the writer to Santa Fe and an extended search was made among the records 
of the old Montezuma Lodge which worked under a Missouri charter, now in the 
archives of Montezuma Lodge No. 1 of New Mexico, that any definite information 
was obtained as to the time and place of the initiation, passing, and raising of the late 
Brother Carson. It is true that the Grand Lodge of New Mexico had erected a stone, 
the third of such memorials, over his grave in Taos, also an iron fence around the 
grave; and it was generally known and asserted that he was in fact a Freemason, but 
that does not satisfy the student of history. 


Brother Carson was born in Madison County, Kentucky, December 24th, 1809. 

While very young he migrated with his parents to Howard County, Missouri, where 
he obtained what little education he ever received, except in the school of the great 
out-of-doors. When but sixteen he joined a party en route for Santa Fe and soon after 
his arrival at that place he proceeded to Fernando de Taos, or Taos as it is called for 
short, which thereafter became "home" to him during the remainder of his days. 


From that time on he led a very active life, having been consecutively engaged in the 
occupations of trapper, hunter, trader, scout, guide, soldier and Indian agent. The 
range of his activities extended from Chihuahua on the south to the Canadian frontier 
on the north; from the city of Washington, whither he went a number of times on 
official business, on the east, to the limpid waters of the Pacific, on the west. In fact 
we have obtained a photograph of him, taken in Boston. He made at least five trips, 
possibly seven, to California and when we consider that all his travels west of 



Westport were accomplished on horseback, we must admit that his was a life of 
activity. He was chief scout and guide of the first three of the Fremont expeditions all 
of which were successful; and while he did not accompany the General on the fourth 
ill-fated expedition, yet it fell his lot to shelter that great man from the storm. The 
General in writing home to his wife about the disastrous expedition, from Taos, on 
January 27, 1849, said in part:- 


"I write you from the house of our good friend Carson. This morning a cup of 
chocolate was brought me, while yet in bed. To an overworn, overworked, much 
fatigued and starving traveller, these little luxuries of the world offer an interest 
which in your comfortable home it is not possible for you to conceive. While in the 
enjoyment of this luxury, then, I pleased myself in imagining how gratified you 
would be in picturing me here in Kit's care, whom you will fancy constantly occupied 
and constantly uneasy in endeavouring to make me comfortable. How little could 
you have dreamed of this while he was enjoying the pleasant hospitality of your 
father's house! The furthest thing then from your mind was that he would ever repay 
me here." (1) 


There can be no doubt that Brother Carson was prepared to become a Mason in his 
heart for some time before he presented himself for initiation. His early associations 
with Governor Bent, Colonel St. Vrain, both of whom were Masons, and with 
General Fremont, who no doubt was also a member, predisposed him to a favourable 
opinion of the Fraternity. 


We know that while he was with Fremont in California a movement headed by 
Eugerilo Macnamara, a Catholic priest, was set on foot to drive out or exterminate all 
Americans, the objects thereof being stated in a memorial addressed to the Mexican 
President, as follows: 


"I propose, with the aid and approbation of your excellency, to place in Upper 
California a colony of Irish Catholics. I have a triple object in making this 
proposition. I wish, in the first place, to advance the cause of Catholicism. In the 
second, to contribute to the happiness of my countrymen. Thirdly, I desire to put an 



obstacle in the way of further usurpations on the part of an irreligious and anti- 
Catholic nation." (2) 


Carson knew of the prompt action of General Fremont in saving the American 
inhabitants of Upper or Northern California from massacre by prosecuting what was 
known locally as the "Bear Flag War"; and that by his promptness, energy and skill 
he reduced the northern half of the Territory, in all of which Carson was a 
participant. He knew that when Admiral Sir George Seymore, with the priest 
Macnamara on board, arrived at Monterey to raise the British flag, the Stars and 
Stripes were already floating over the city, nailed to the masthead and there to stay. 


As a testimonial to Kit's fame at that time, we have Lieutenant Walpole, an officer in 
the British Admiral's fleet, who in writing home to London said in part, in describing 
Fremont's army: 


"He has one or two with him who enjoy a high reputation in the prairies. Kit Carson 
is as well known there as a duke is in Europe." 


When Brother Carson returned to New Mexico, he found that his brother-in-law, 
Charles Bent, who was the first American Civil Governor of New Mexico and a 
Freemason, together with others of his closest and most intimate friends, had been 
assassinated in a most cruel and inhuman manner; and that religious fanaticism had 
sought to accomplish by the firebrand and dagger what the soldier had not dared to 
attempt with the sword. 


And so in our pilgrimage to Santa Fe we learned that Christopher Carson was duly 
initiated an Entered Apprentice March 29, 1854, was passed June 17 and raised 
December 26 of the same year. He was living at the time at Rayado in what is now 
Colfax county. To attend lodge he was obliged to travel approximately 150 miles and 
in that day he probably made the trip on horseback. But to a man who had time and 
again shown himself ever ready and willing to go on foot and out of his way to 
relieve any person in distress that was nothing. 



That Brother Carson practised true Masonic charity is evidenced by the following 
story, which to my knowledge has never been published and which was obtained by 
the writer from his niece, who, after the assassination of her father, Governor Bent, 
was raised by Carson, and living in the household at the time of its happening. It is in 
substance as follows: 


Carson had learned that the Comanches had a slave, a white boy about twelve years 
of age. He there-upon fitted out a pack outfit or train, hired a couple of natives and 
furnished them with trinkets and other articles to trade and barter with the Indians, 
with whom they were on friendly terms at the time. They went out and located the 
Comanches and purchased the boy and brought him back. When he was brought in 
he was hardly distinguishable from an Indian. Carson had him cleaned up and 
provided with new clothes. He then tried to converse with him in English, Spanish 
and French, all to no avail. He then called in a gentleman who spoke German. When 
the lad heard his mother tongue, for he proved to be German, he began crying. He 
was given to understand that he was among friends. He then gave his name, his 
father's name and the place in Texas from whence he had been stolen. Carson then 
fitted out another outfit and sent him home and restored him to his parents, bearing 
the whole expense himself, the boy's people having been in poor circumstances. 


At another time, two women, who had been captured in Mexico by the Comanches 
and carried off as slaves, upon learning that Carson with a party was at the time in the 
neighbourhood of the tribe, made their escape to him and he sent them back to their 
people in Mexico, at his own expense. 


Another incident, hitherto unpublished, and one that reveals his patriotism, was 
related to me by the late Captain Smith H. Simpson, who knew Carson for fifteen 
years prior to the latter's death. The Captain said that in the Spring of 1868, just after 
Carson had returned from one of his official trips (he was Indian Agent at the time) 
they were walking up the west side of the plaza in Taos. Carson said to Simpson, 

"Do you see that flag up there?" pointing to the American flag floating over the 
plaza. Simpson replied, "Yes." Carson then said, "Well I have kept that up since 



'Forty Seven. I am not going to be here much longer. I want you to see that flag stays 
up." He "passed over the great divide" about two months later, aged 58 years. 


For contemporary comment on his life and character, we look to the first issue of The 
Pueblo Chieftain, which said:- 


"DEATH OF KIT CARSON. The melancholy intelligence reaches us that General 
Kit Carson is no more. He died at his residence on the Las Animas on the 24th inst, 
of disease of the heart. General Carson was a Kentuckian by birth, removed early in 
life to the State of Missouri, and while yet a mere boy became a wanderer on the vast 
plains of the then known regions of the West. From about the age of seventeen years 
until fifty he lived the life of a hunter, trader and trapper. He early explored and 
became familiar with the mountains and plains from the Missouri to the Pacific 
ocean. During all these years of his wild life he was constantly exposed to every 
hardship and danger; sometimes making his home with some tribe of the Indians and 
assisting them in their wars against other tribes; sometimes employed as a trapper by 
some mountain trader; sometimes trading on his own account between New Mexico 
and California. His home was always the wilderness, and danger was his constant 
companion. Unaided by the advantages of education or patronage, by the forces of 
indomitable, energy and will, by chivalrous courage, by tireless labour and self 
denial, he rose step by step, until his name had become as familiar to the American 
People as a household word. He stood preeminent among the pathfinders and 
founders of empire in the Great West, and his long career, ennobled by hardship and 
danger, is unsullied by a record of littleness or meanness. He was nature's model of a 
gentleman. Kindly of heart, tolerant to all men, good in virtues of disposition, rather 
than great in qualities of mind, he has passed away - dying as through his life he had 
lived - in peace and charity with all men, and leaving behind him a name and memory 
to be cherished by his countrymen so long as modesty, valour, unobtrusive worth, 
charity and true chivalry survive among men. Of his precise age we are not advised, 
but judge he was very near sixty years of age. He leaves children of tender age to 
mourn his loss." 


Kit Carson had many fights with the Indians while on hunting and trapping 
expeditions. Of his many deeds of valour we mention but one or two. One occurred 
while with Fremont, when Carson was leading a party of six scouts as an advanced 



guard in southern Oregon. The Klamath Indians had been giving trouble, even to 
making a night attack and killing some of Fremont's men. The latter decided to 
chastise the Indians. He therefore sent Carson on ahead to locate them. Carson and 
his men came suddenly upon a Klamath village. Sending a runner back for the main 
party, his party and the Indians each attacked simultaneously. When Fremont arrived 
on the scene the village was in flames and such Indians as survived were in full flight. 


We might mention another instance. When General Kearney was surrounded by the 
Mexican forces in Southern California, Carson and Lieutenant Beale of the Navy 
volunteered and made their way through the Mexican lines, reached the sea coast and 
secured men and munitions for the relief of Kearney. 


Carson was chief scout and guide of the Saguache campaign against the Utes, under 
Colonels Fontleroy and St. Vrain, in which the Indians got a whipping that they never 
forgot. 


About 1863 Carson was made Colonel of the First New Mexico Cavalry, and one of 
his first military operations was against the Kiowas and Comanches, culminating in a 
battle near the old adobe fort, formerly erected by Bent and St. Vrain on the Canadian 
River in Texas. These Indians had made a great deal of trouble for years, but they 
were cured in the fight at the "Adobe Walls," as the fight was called. 


But Carson's greatest military achievement was his Navaho campaign. The writer has 
talked with men who were on the ground during that campaign; and in his humble 
opinion that achievement alone lifted General Carson to the front rank of American 
Indian fighters. The Spaniards had waged a war aging the Navahos for two hundred 
years. Mexico had continued that war, likewise the United States. But the Navahos 
remained defiant and unsubdued. When the troops would concentrate they would 
scatter, and when the troops scattered they would concentrate, and with their system 
of signals and knowledge of the country they were invincible. Of that campaign we 
would prefer to stand aside and let a contemporary speak. Colonel Jas. F. Meline in 
"Two Thousand Miles on Horseback," in writing of the declaration of war by General 
Carleton upon the Navahos, said: 



"True to his promise, the war opened on the very day set by General Carleton, July 
20, 1863. A regiment of New Mexicans, with more than a century of accumulated 
wrong and oppression to avenge, were at once placed under the command of a man 
who understood his Indian well - Kit Carson. These troops knew neither summer rest 
nor winter quarters but pursued the Indian foe relentlessly month after month, night 
and day, over mesas and deserts and rivers, under broiling suns and in rough winter 
snows, killing and capturing them in their most chosen retreats, until finally, broken 
and dispirited under a chastisement the like of which they never had dreamed of, 
small bands began to come in voluntarily, then larger ones, and finally groups of 
fifties and hundreds, nearly comprising the strength of the tribe. The prisoners, as 
fast as received, were dispatched to the Bosque Redondo, and those who remained 
sent out white flags in vain. Throughout 1864, 1865 and the present year, the war 
went on under these conditions, and the result is that some eight thousand Navahos, 
including a few Apaches, are now living peaceably at the Bosque, engaged in 
agriculture and manufactures, four hundred miles from their old homes, and ninety 
miles east of Rio Grande Settlement." 


This cured the Navahos and they have been "good Indians" ever since. Throughout 
his career Carson never failed to teach the Indians not only to fear but to trust him. 

He was their friend in their hour of need and he spoke five Indian languages besides 
Spanish and French. His last official act, so far as the writer has been able to 
ascertain, was the making of a treaty with the Utes which was transmitted to Congress 
March 18, 1868. A fitting ending for a man, who by his conduct had set a plumb line 
in the wilderness, and set a level in the desert and applied the square to all his 
dealings with his fellow men, who had given his life to win the West for the country 
he loved. He was beloved of all who knew him and in enclosing this sketch we wish 
again to quote from Colonel Meline: 


"The pleasantest episode of my visit here has been the society of Kit Carson, with 
whom I passed three days, I need hardly say delightfully. He is one of the few men I 
ever met who can talk long hours to you of what he has seen, and yet say very little 
about himself. He has to be drawn out. I had many questions to ask, and his answers 
were all marked by great distinctness of memory, simplicity, candour, and a desire to 
make some one else, rather than himself, the hero of his story." 



Such was the manner of the man. 


(1) Upham's "Life of Fremont," p. 279. 

(2) Idem p. 230. 


— o — 


THE FAMOUS TESTIMONIAL TO ALBERT G. MACKEY 


BY THE EDITOR 


DURING the troublesome times of the Civil War Albert G. Mackey was confined to 
his home city of Charleston, S. C., where for four years he gave his time, his energies 
and his substance to the succour of his brethren, little heeding whether they belonged 
to North or to South, though he himself was a Union man. Immediately after 
Charleston, the "cradle of the rebellion," had passed once again into Federal control, 
Dr. Mackey's brethren of New York City "moved by a common impulse of 
admiration for the man, of ardent sympathy for the unyielding patriot, of fraternal 
love for the zealous Mason, determined to invite him to visit them once more, and to 
receive at their hands a substantial evidence of their sympathy." (I am quoting from a 
very rare account of the Dr. Mackey Testimonial printed in 1865 by Macoy and 
Sickels. This copy was signed by Mackey himself and inscribed to the then Grand 
Master of New York, Clinton F. Paige.) 


A call was issued to the Masons of New York City. They met on the evening of 
March 15, 1865 and at that time adopted, among others, this resolution, that, 



"Whereas, it has further come to our knowledge that by the vicissitudes of war, our 
R.'. W.'. Brother has lost his property, and in his declining years been reduced to the 
sharp necessity of beginning again the battle of life; therefore, 


"Resolved, That as an earnest of our good will we solicit his acceptance of the 
voluntary contributions of the brethren " 


A public "Welcome and Testimonial" was held in the Academy of Music on Saturday 
evening, May 20, 1865, M.'. W.'. Clinton F. Paige presiding. A number of 
"distinguished artists," along with "Grafulla's Seventh Regiment Full Band," made the 
occasion memorable. 


The center of interest on the occasion was the gracious kindly gentleman from the 
South in whose honour so large a throng was assembled. After the music had ceased, 
and the Grand Master had pronounced a beautiful welcoming address, Dr. Mackey 
delivered the speech, a part of which succeeds this brief narrative. 


This speech, however impressive as it was then - and still is - did not so deeply stir 
the auditors as the incident that followed, the account of which I transcribe from the 
record. 


"Just as Mme. Salvotti had breathed the last intonation of her song, and before the 
sounds of her voice had died away, R.'. W.'. Robert Macoy stepped forward and 
presented Brother Mackey with a beautiful gold snuffbox, of which the following 
history was given: 


"It was stated that this box had before been presented to Brother Mackey by the 
Masonic fraternity, as a token of gratitude for the many years of faithful servitude he 



had rendered them. Shortly after the commencement of the war, however, Brother 
Mackey was compelled to part with it in order to procure bread for his family. The 
box then passed into the hands of a person who took it to Easton, Pa., and gave it to a 
jeweller to have the inscription erased. This fact becoming known to Brother J. M. 
Porter, Jr., Past Master of Easton Lodge No. 152, he, with other members of the 
lodge, having by correspondence with New York become acquainted with its history, 
purchased it, and sent it to New York to Brother Macoy, with the request that it 
should in their name be returned to Brother Mackey, with a handsome little present 
enclosed. The box has since been kept safely without the knowledge of Brother 
Mackey, until it was presented to him last evening. In making the presentation, 
Brother Macoy briefly explained the above facts, and closed by saying that the box, 
though beautiful on the outside, had, also, a peculiar inside lining; he would not say 
exactly what it was, but it looked green (backs). 


"It is needless to say that Brother Mackey was taken by surprise at the reappearance 
of his precious gift, the snuffbox. He expressed himself much gratified at becoming 
again the possessor of it, and retired amid the applause of the audience." 


It transpired that Dr. Mackey had literally bankrupted himself in order to give 
assistance to his brethren, even to the extent of his personal belongings. A venerable 
brother who was present at the Academy of Music tells me that those who were in 
attendance left with the feeling that in this Testimonial it was already evident that 
Masons would take the lead in healing over the breach between the two sections, and 
that in his own attitude and spirit Dr. Mackey revealed that which so ennobled 
Abraham Lincoln, - "Malice toward none, charity for all." 


— o — 


Freemasonry is the science of life, taught in a society of men by signs, symbols and 
ceremonies, having as its basis a system of morality, and for its purposes and aim, the 
perfection and happiness of the individual and the race. - George F. Moore 



O 


FREEMASONRY IN THE CIVIL WAR 


BY BROTHER DR. ALBERT G. MACKEY 


As explained in the preceding article, a public Testimonial was given to Brother 
Mackey, author of Mackey's Encyclopedia, Mackey's History of Freemasonry, etc., 
on the night of May 20th, 1865. Space does not permit the reproduction of the whole 
or the remarkable speech delivered by him at that time, but it is believed that many 
brethren will be delighted to read that part which contains his stirring account of 
Masonic relief during the soul-racking days of the Civil War. 


AS A MASON, holding a not altogether obscure position in the Order, I have, in the 
course of my life written and said much about its excellence and beauty. I know that 
it teaches fraternal love. I know that it inculcates kindness to the destitute, and 
sympathy for the sorrowing. I know its pretensions to be a science of morality and a 
development in one direction of the religious sentiment. But until this war came upon 
us, in all its horror of want and suffering, of demoniac hate and inhuman passion, I 
did not know how successfully theory and practice could be mingled in the teachings 
of the Order and the actions of the disciples. I did not know how surely and 
steadfastly its rays of light could dispel the gloom of this dark night of our national 
history. 


When the first struggles of the infant rebellion began to threaten the gigantic future of 
ruin and desolation, which it subsequently too successfully achieved, all the other 
social, moral and religious societies of the country preserved a deathlike silence. No 
voice of warning, no voice of entreaty, no prayer or suggestion for forbearance came 
from any section of the land, already upheaving with the throes of a fratricidal 
conflict. The Church where peace on earth and good will toward men should have 
been at all times, but then more especially, the constant theme, was dumb as the 



grave. The dark funeral pall of war was closing around the land, and there was none 
to raise its gathering clouds and let in one solitary ray of peace, or hope, or love. 


Masonry alone, mindful of its divine mission on earth, spoke out with persuasive 
tongue of exhortation, that men and brethren should abstain from this cruel conflict. 
That it thus spoke is a noble incident of its history. And although its voice was then 
unheeded, none shall henceforth, forever, rob it of the glory of the attempt. 


Scarcely sixty days had elapsed after the first shot had been fired at Fort Sumpter, 
when, from the National Capitol, the true-hearted Grand Master of the Templars of 
the United States issued a memorable address to the knights of his command, who 
were scattered over both sections of our discordant country, in which he "implored 
each one, after humbly seeking strength and aid from on High, to exert all means at 
his command to avert the dread calamity and prevent the shedding of fraternal blood." 


Not a month had passed ere the officers of the Grand Lodge of Tenessee made a 
similar invocation for peace; and in the tones of entreaty that ought to have been 
heard, "as Masons, as members of a common brotherhood, as brethren bound together 
by fraternal ties not to be broken save by the hand of death," they appealed for a 
cessation of the unnatural strife. 


And a few weeks later, the Grand Masters of Kentucky, of Ohio, and of Indiana, 
united in a similar work of attempted reconciliation; and crying out from the very 
depths of their hearts, "Is there no balm for the bleeding wounds of our nation? Is 
there no hand to hold out the olive branch? No saviour to still the troubled waters?" - 
they concluded their earnest appeal by inviting a Masonic convention, which should 
recommend some plan to heal the wounds of the country. Had the acerbity of 
political strife, and the cunning of political corruption which were then overbearing 
the deluded people with their pressure, permitted the holding of such a convention, 
who can tell what blessed results might have been brought forth from the communion 
of men who had been taught the duty of mutual kindness and mutual forbearance at 
the same sacred altar and in the same mystic language? 



And then came with like counsels the gentle voice of Cyril Pearl from his far-off 
home on the very borders of our land. He lived to see the culmination of the war 
which he deprecated. Before its decline he was called from his earthly labours of 
love. Masonry can illy spare such noble-hearted men. 


And when at last the clouds of war had not only gathered all over the land, but had 
burst forth in a storm of carnage; when there was no more hope of peace until the 
discordant passions of men should be diluted with the flow of blood, the Grand 
Master of South Carolina, whose heart, strongly beating with Union sympathies, has 
long since been quelled in death, addressed an encyclical letter to his brethren, in 
which he charged them in the name of our Supreme and Universal Master, "to suffer 
not the disputes and broils of men to impair the harmony which has existed and will 
exist throughout the fraternity." "Let us not," he said, in his own emphatic language, 
"let us not hear among us that there is war; that strife and dissension prevail. As 
Masons, it concerns us not." 


And I rejoice in my heart that these teachings were not unheeded. If there was war 
without, there was always peace within our lodges. 


Will you bear with me while I say of my native jurisdiction, where I thi nk I have 
some Masonic influence, that in South Carolina, reproached as I fear she justly is, as 
birthplace, the benignant principles of Freemasonry were never for a moment 
forgotten. In its capital city, the only place, I fear, on the whole continent where the 
same deed of love was enacted, prisoners of war, who were Masons, were relieved on 
their parole by the officer of their guard, himself a Mason, and carried from the prison 
to the lodge room, to relieve the weariness of their captivity by witnessing and 
participating in the secret services of the Order. 


And I can solemnly aver that I never approached a Mason or lodge in Charleston, 
with a petition for the relief of a destitute, suffering prisoner of war, without receiving 
the kindest response and the most liberal donation. 



Throughout the length and breadth of our land, at the North and the South, the East, 
and the West, wherever there was the sin of strife, there, too, was the atoning peace of 
Masonry. It went into the prison, and gave comfort to the captive. It went into the 
hospital, and gave balm to the wounded. It went into the battlefield, and gave rescue 
of life to the conquered. 


Let none henceforth speak of its unknown mysteries, or contempt for its pretended 
merits. Let its adversaries be silent before the magnitude of its achievements; and 
when the history of this unnatural war is written, while all honour is bestowed upon 
the hero and the patriot, let it not be forgotten, but let it rather be inscribed in 
characters of living light, that when war was beginning to whet its beak - while other 
associations were indifferent and dumb - while the churches themselves gave no sign 
of Christian life, Masonry done sought to avert the impending evil; and when the full 
tide of conflict had rolled in upon our shores, and blood was soaked into the ground, 
Masonry again came forth, a ministering angel, to clothe in some measure the stain of 
our nation's fratricidal contest with a ray of cheering light, and to give to the black 
cloud of war a silver lining. 


— o — 


A ROMAN CATHOLIC EDITOR OPPOSES ROMAN CATHOLIC SECRET 
SOCIETIES 


Why Roman Catholics should be so opposed to Freemasonry because it is a secret 
society while their own church fosters, and has in times past fostered, some of the most 
powerful secret societies that have ever existed has long been a standing puzzle to 
Masons who believe that what is sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the 
gander. But Masons are not the only ones to observe this curious inconsistency. Here is 
a letter from a Roman Catholic editor that was published in The Fortnightly Review, 
September 1st, 1922, page 327. It is sufficiently explicit and stands in no need of 
interpretation. The Fortnightly Review is a Roman Catholic journal, published on the 
1st and 16th of every month, 5851 Etzel Avenue, St. Louis, Mo. It is edited by Arthur 
Preuss, author of a well known "book" on Freemasonry. 



"I just finished reading your fine article 'Combating Secret Societies' (F.R., No. 16, p. 
301 sq.). While reading it, and fully agreeing with Bishop Wehrle, I wondered what 
should be said about the secret societies within the Church or 'in the shadow of the 
Church.' 


"Thirty years ago, as a printer, I became interested in secret societies, Every once in a 
while some mysterious stuff came along 'a printers handled the cuts of various 
emblems, turned out stationery, letters, etc., and began to study the material. This will 
explain why I am able today to tell at first glance to what lodge a man belongs if he 
wears an emblem. When I went into business for myself, I was told of the many 
advantages of secret orders, and I joined one. My interest grew, I became very active 
and was elected to various offices, excepting the 'paid' offices, but I have had my fill of 
'honor.' Once I discussed the question of life insurance and fraternal orders with a 
Lutheran pastor, whom I respected for the stand he took against all the mummery, 
tomfoolery and rot. This pastor was well read on the subject and gave me a ritual of a 
certain secret society. Reading it I found that it was similar, yes, in some parts and 
respects identical with the ritual which 'we' used. After that I read various exposes, and 
I have reasons to believe that the latter are correct. Later I read your book on 
Freemasonry. My interest grew, and I obtained some 'real rituals.' I am in a position 
now to state that all secret societies are fashioned alike. 'We' met in an I.O.O.F. Hall at 
one time for a monster initiation, and let me assure you that it was not necessary to shift 
much scenery to adapt the hall for our 'ceremonies.' 'We' even left the altar where it 
stood, but called it the 'Center Pedestal.' 


" 'We' have the 'stations,' the 'wicket,' the 'pass-word,' the 'grip,' the sign and salute, the 
'gown and cap,' the 'mysteries,' all the awe-inspiring things and all the tommyrot of the 
lodge room with a few religious features to make it a little different. 


"Of course, 'we' go to communion in a body to remain in good standing. 



"As long as 'we' act thus and indulge in the mummery and humbug which is being 
condemned by our bishops here and there, results cannot be expected. What we need, 
and need badly, is a house-cleaning that begins right at home. 


"I am not writing this for publication, and cannot permit my name to be printed in 
connection with it. I am simply stating facts which cannot be overlooked, or disputed 
for that matter. It has gone too far, and, 1 believe that it is beyond remedy. When it is 
borne in mind that the Wisconsin Staatsverband (D.R.K.C.V.) recently filled a long-felt 
want by adopting an 'Einfuhrungs-Modus' with a very strong leaning to secrecy, it 
becomes plain that the garden is full of weeds. 


"Worst of all: If the Church tolerates secret societies within and 'in her shadow,' 
Catholics naturally must conclude that they are not so bad after all. Swimming against 
the stream, as both of us do, we have the sensation of being living fish, but it is folly to 
think that we are making any headway. 


"I could give you a 'lot of dope,' but what's the use? Constant dripping may hollow a 
stone, but you and I will be dead and buried a long time before the stone will show any 
marks." A Catholic Fellow Editor. 


— o — 


GOTHIC CATHEDRALS USED AS CIVIC BUILDINGS 


The Gothic cathedrals were almost as much civic buildings as they were churches, and 
in the sense that they embodied the pride, the ambition, and the rivalries of the cities, 
this was eminently the case. But they were also actually used for town meetings, for 
public festivals, and for theatrical exhibitions - the "miracle plays" and "passion plays," 
which have survived in one famous instance at Oberammergau. In the Middle Ages the 
church and the cathedral were always open, like the Roman Catholic churches of our 



own day. Here the poor man was the equal of the rich. The beggar and his lord met on 
terms of equality in the liberty of using the building and in the theory of its religious 
teachings. There were no pews for favored owners. The cathedral was the palace of the 
poor, and its entire space outside the sanctuary was open to their daily visits and 
sojourn at will, without disturbance. 


The cathedral was the museum of art; a museum made, not to display the ostentation of 
the rich or the luxury of his life, but to teach by pictures and reliefs the history of the 
world as then known and comprehended by the traditions of the church, and the lessons 
of faith and of sacrifice. Here were, moreover, the actual memorials and relics of past 
ages; for here was the treasury not only of the art of the present but also of the art of the 
past. Finally, the cathedral was the sanctuary of the famous and illustrious dead. Their 
tombs were its decoration and its pride. 


- W.H. Goodyear. 


— o — 


MEMORIALS TO GREAT MEN WHO WERE MASONS - GENERAL JOSEPH 
WARREN 


BY BRO. GEO. W. BAIRD, P.G.M., DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 


JOSEPH WARREN was Grand Master of Massachusetts. There is a handsome 
memorial to him in Roxbury of that state, where he was buried. 


General Warren was bom in Roxbury in 1741, and he was killed at the Battle of 
Bunker Hill in 1775. Like so many of our early patriots he was a physician before he 



became a soldier. He was graduated from Harvard University and practiced medicine 
in Boston. 


His courageous and fiery patriotism is revealed by the fact that when Mr. Samuel 
Adams declined to deliver the address on the second anniversary of the "Boston 
Massacre," March 5, 1772, Dr. Warren himself delivered it, though he knew the act 
was fraught with great danger to himself. 


Dr. Warren was a delegate to the convention at Suffolk, which took measures to 
prevent Governor Gage from fortifying the south entrance to Boston. He was a delegate 
to the Massachusetts Congress in 1774, and was elected president of that body. It is 
said that "to his energy was in great measure due the successful result of the battle of 
Lexington." In 1775 he received his commission as Major General and took part 
shortly afterwards in the Battle of Bunker Hill, with which his name will ever be 
connected in the loving annals of this nation. 


There is a story told of him to the effect that he was warned by Elbridge Gerry against 
hazard in exposing his person, to which General Warren exclaimed: "I know that I may 
fall, but where is the man who does not think it glorious and delightful to die for his 
country ! " Another story relates that a British officer called to him by name to warn 
him of his risks and even ordered his men to cease firing. Dr. Warren was shot in the 
head and died instantly. If it be true that the British officer did call to him in this 
manner we should feel remiss were we to pass so gallant an act without praise. 


General Warren devoted years to the Craft and occupies a conspicuous place in the 
history of the early Masonry of the United States. He was a Mason in deed as well as in 
word, and such men always become the idol of the brethren. Lodges have been named 
for General Warren in almost every state in the Union. The Grand Secretary of New 
York, Brother Kenworthy, has made the excellent suggestion that the Craft establish 
the custom of naming new lodges after these great patriots. 



Perhaps I can do no more thorough justice to the story of the Masonic career of General 
Warren than by incorporating here an account of him published in the Grand Lodge 
Proceedings of Massachusetts, June 14, 1916, wherein we may read: 


"Joseph Warren was bom in Roxbury, Mass., June 11, 1741. He graduated at Harvard 
College in 1759. During 1760 he was employed as a teacher in a public school in 
Roxbury and in the following year commenced the study of medicine under Doctor 
Lloyd, an eminent physician of that day. He began practice in 1763 and is said to have 
distinguished himself at once. In 1764 the smallpox prevailed extensively in Boston 
and he was very successful in treating it. About this time he began to take an active part 
in political affairs, and his letters to public men and his newspaper essays soon 
attracted the attention even of the government. They were remarkable for clearness of 
thought, terseness of statement, and cogency of argument. In 1774 he was chosen to 
represent the town of Boston in the Provincial Congress and in the following year was 
elected President of that body. Here he manifested extraordinary powers of mind and a 
peculiar fitness for the guidance and government of men in times of difficulty and 
danger. 


"The Congress was then sitting at Watertown and upon its daily adjournment he 
hastened to the military camp there to participate with the common soldiers in the 
exercise and drills and to encourage and animate them by exhortation and example. 
The Provincial Congress offered him the appointment of Surgeon General, but he 
declined it and accepted a Commission as Major General, dated only three days before 
the Battle of Bunker Hill. 


"On the night of the 16th of June, 1775, he presided at the meeting of the Colonial 
Congress which continued in session a great part of the night in Watertown. Early in 
the morning of June 1 7th he visited a patient in Dedham and left her saying that he 
must go to Charlestown to get a shot at the British and would return to her in season for 
her confinement which was almost hourly expected. He arrived at Bunker Hill only a 
few moments before the first attack of the British troops. There he refused to take 
command when offered it by Putnam and Prescott, seized a musket, and fought as a 
private. His reluctance to obey the order to retreat resulted in his death as he was only a 
few rods from the redoubt when the British obtained full possession and he; was 
instantly killed by a bullet in the head. He was buried in a shallow grave on the field. 



"Immediately after the evacuation of Boston his Masonic brethren determined to go in 
search of the body. They repaired to the spot indicated by an eye-witness of his death. 

It was at the brow of a hill, and near the head of the grave was an acacia tree. Upon the 
removal of the earth which appeared to have been recently disturbed they found the 
body of their Grand Master. This was on the 6th of April, 1776. They carefully 
conveyed the body to the State House in Boston, and on the 8th of the same month an 
oration was delivered over his remains by Perez Morton who was at the time Grand 
Marshal of the Grand Lodge. After the funeral ceremonies the remains were deposited 
in a tomb in the Granary Burying Ground where they remained for nearly fifty years. In 
1825 his remains were found, identified, deposited in a box of hardwood, designated by 
a silver plate, and placed in the Warren Tomb under St. Paul's Church, Boston. A 
number of years later they were again removed and found their final resting place in 
Forest Hills Cemetery. 


"King Solomon's Lodge (then of Charlestown, now of Somerville), in December, 1794, 
erected and dedicated a monument to his memory in the shape of a Tuscan pillar 
eighteen feet high, resting upon a platform eight feet in height, eight feet square, and 
fenced about to Protect it from injury. On the top of the pillar was placed a gilt urn with 
the initials and age of General Warren enclosed within the square and compasses. The 
dedicatory services and procession were elaborate. The lodge kept the monument in 
repair until March 8, 1825, when they voted to present the land and monument to the 
Bunker Hill Monument Association upon condition that there should be placed within 
the walls of the monument the Association was about to erect a suitable memorial of 
the ancient pillar in order to perpetuate that early patriotic act of the Masonic 
Fraternity. In fulfillment of that condition King Solomon's Lodge on June 24, 1845, 
placed within Bunker Hill Monument an exact model in marble of the original 
monument. The public ceremonies were conducted by the Grand Lodge, including 
many distinguished brethren from other jurisdictions. An interesting feature of the 
occasion was the presentation of the working tools to the Grand Master, Augustus 
Peabody, by Past Grand Mast John Soley, who had himself fifty years before dedicated 
the first monument. The comer stone of the present monument was laid with Mason 
ceremonies on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle under the direction of Grand Master 
John Abbot, assisted by our illustrious Brother Lafayette. The completion of the 
monument was celebrated on the seventeenth of June, 1843, the Masonic portion of the 
procession being under the direction of King Solomon's Lodge. 



"On that occasion Past Grand Master Benjamin Russell, a soldier of the Revolution, 
wore the Masonic Apron of General Warren. On June 17, 1857, Most Worshipful John 
T. Heard, Grand Master, assisted by the Grand Officers and two thousand brethren, 
inaugurated a statue of General Warren in the presence of about five thousand persons. 


"Joseph Warren was initated in St. Andrew's Lodge of Boston on September 30, 1761. 
He was passed on November 2d, but there is no record as to the date of his raising. 

On November 14, 1765, the lodge voted unanimously that Doctor Joseph Warren be 
re-admitted a member of the lodge. He was elected Master in 1769. In December of 
that year he received from the Earl of Dalhousie, Grand Master of Masons in 
Scotland, a Commission bearing date May 30, 1769, appointing him Grand Master of 
Masons in Boston and within one hundred miles of the same. In 1773 he received 
another Commission dated March 3, 1772, issued by the Earl of Dumfries, then 
Grand Master of Scotland, extending his jurisdiction over the Continent of America. 
He was installed under each of these Commissions on the 27th 


BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 
ORIGINAL INSCRIPTION 

"Erected A. D. MDCCXCIV., by King Solomon's Lodge of Freemasons, constituted 
at Charlestown, 1783, in memory of Major General Joseph Warren and his 
Associates, who were slain on this memorable spot, June 17, 1775. 


None but they who set a just value upon the blessings of Liberty are worthy to enjoy 
her. In vain we toiled: in vain we fought: we bled in vain, if you, our offspring, want 
valor to repel the assaults of her invaders!” 


Charlestown Settled 1628: Burnt 1775; Rebuilt 1776. The closed land given by Hon. 
James Russell." 


NEW INSCRIPTION 


"This is an exact model of the first monument erected on Bunker Hill, which, with the 
land on which it stood, was given A.D. 1825 by King Solomon's Lodge, of this town, 
to the Bunker Hill Monument Association, that they might erect upon its site a more 
imposing structure. The Association, in fulfilment of a pledge at that time given, have 
allowed, in their imperishable obelisk, this model to be inserted, with appropriate 
ceremonies, by King Solomon's Lodge, June 24th, A. D. 1845." 


of December of the respective years. Grand Master Warren presided over all the forty 
meetings of the Grand Lodge held previous to his death, save four. On one of the 
occasions when he was absent, namely, June 3, 1774, the record recites that the Grand 
Lodge adjourned by reason of the few Grand Officers present, they being engaged on 
consequential public business. He was present, however, at the adjourned meeting on 
the 7th of that month. 


"Joseph Warren, the first man of distinction to lay down his life in the cause of 
American liberty, was not only young and handsome, but also able, energetic, patriotic, 
active and brave. Notwithstanding his youth he had the responsibilities and care of a 
young family, the anxieties and labors of the large practice of a popular physician, and 
the demands of an extensive correspondence both at home and abroad, personal as well 
as political. With all this he was a constant attendant upon the meetings of the 
Committee of Correspondence, the Committee of Safety, the meetings of the town, of 
the Sons of Liberty, and other caucuses. He was a prolific writer. He was assiduous in 
the exercise of his Masonic duties to such an extent that Masonry even in those 
troublous days flourished and prospered under his administration." 



When Daniel Webster delivered his masterly address at the dedication of Bunker Hill 
monument, he made no mention of the monument it displaced, which seems to have 
been largely forgotten. I am indebted to Brother C.F. Willard of San Diego, California, 
for the reference, and to the Grand Secretary of Massachusetts (Brother Frederick W. 
Hamilton) for the picture herewith produced. It tells the whole story, and any attempt to 
add to its grandeur would be like an effort to paint the lily. But how so great and 
important an illustration could be buried so long it is hard to understand. The name of 
King Solomon's Lodge should be emblazoned in letters of gold for this grand act; and, 
be it remembered, that it must have been erected at no small sacrifice in that day when 
money was so scarce. 


This Masonic monument was removed to make place for a larger one, at public 
expense, thus removing this evidence that the great Warren was a Mason, though his 
memorial at Roxbury shows that he was. 


I conclude with a poem that gives excellent expression to the spirit of Warren. My copy 
is signed by the name "Pierponf can some reader tell us something about this 
Revolutionary bard? was he the John Pierpont who was bom in 1785 and died in 1866, 
and who divided his attention equally between themes patriotic and religious ? 


WARREN'S ADDRESS AT BUNKER HILL 


Stand! the ground's your own, my braves! 
Will ye give it up to slaves? 

Will ye look for greener graves? 

Hope ye mercy still? 

What's the mercy despots feel? 

Hear it in that battle peal! 



Hear it on yon bristling steel! 

Ask it - ye who will. 

Fear ye foes who kill for hire? 

Will ye to your homes retire? 

Look behind you! they're afire! 

And, before you, see - 
Who have done it! - from the vale 
On they come! - and will ye quail? - 
Leaden rain and iron hail 
Let their welcome be! 

In the God of battles trust! 

Die we may, - and die we must; - 
But, oh! where can dust to dust 
Be consigned so well. 

As where heaven its dews shall shed 
On the martyred patriot's bed, 

And the rocks shall raise their head, 
Of his deeds to tell! 


— o — 



THE AWFUL FETISH OF FEEDING 


Miscellanea Latomorum, Vol. VII, No. 3, page 47, prints a communication that is not 
without point on this side of the water. Says the editor, Brother Lionel Vibert: "I 
advisedly print the following outpourings without ally indications of their origin, but I 
can assure my readers that they come from an eminent source." The item is as follows: 


"I was very pleased to see your remarks on page 135 of volume VI. Royal Cumberland 
is very much to be congratulated that this is the class of lodge that it is a pleasure to 
belong to. This awful fetish of feeding that now exists is depressing. On the last two 
occasions I have been to Chapters (Royal Arch, not in London) my whole evening was 
spoilt by hustling the ceremony to get to dinner. In one case I was in the second chair 
and a Provincial Grand Lodge Officer sitting behind who was paying an official visit 
asked me to get the Z to cut out the lectures and then to take the ballot for the officers 
in one lot. The other occasion was an installation - only two of the principals were 
fully installed as the third was already an H. A ceremony of exaltation was to follow 
but it was actually cut out because they were afraid the soup would be cold! These two 
Chapters were in different Provinces, but such cases are by no means uncommon. 
Masonry of this sort is useless. The last time I was in a Mark lodge almost the same 
sort of thing was done, the Master made very neat little addresses to his new officers, 
and afterwards a visiting Provincial Grand Lodge Officer groused about it because it 
made us late for dinner. This sort of thing is a very bad example to the younger 
brethren. 


"There is another habit which very much wants stopping, and that is making a 
Masonic sign when toasting a brother across the table; it seems to be getting much 
more common than it was and is dangerous when there are so mary outside waiters 
about." 


— o — 



TO ALBERT G. MACKEY 


BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA 

Scholar Mason, gentle, kindly, 

How securely has thy name, 

How serenely has thy fame 
Braved the years that else so blindly 
Have undone so much we prize! 

Still thy spirit hovers near us, 

Now to guide and now to cheer us, 
Never harsh and always wise. 

In what Lodge, beyond our ken 
Hast thou found a Master's place? 
Dost thou now behold the Face 
Of the Master of all men? 

May He grant to thee the wage 
Of a Craftsman and a Sage. 

— o — 


THE TEACHINGS OF MASONRY 



BYBRO. H.L. HAYWOOD 


The following paper is one of a series of articles on "Philosophical Masonry," or "The 
Teachings of Masonry," by Brother Haywood, to be used for reading and discussion in 
lodges and study clubs. From the questions following each section of the paper the 
study club leader should select such as he may desire to use in bringing out particular 
points for discussion. To go into a lengthy discussion on each individual question 
presented might possibly consume more time than the lodge or study club may be able 
to devote to the study club meeting. 


In conducting the study club meetings the leader should endeavor to hold the 
discussions closely to the text of the paper and not permit the members to speak too 
long at one time or to stray onto another subject. Whenever it becomes evident that the 
discussion is turning from the original subject the leader should request the members to 
make notes of the particular points or phases of the matter they may wish to discuss or 
inquire into and bring them up after the last section of the paper is disposed of. 


The meetings should be closed with a "Question Box" period, when such questions as 
may have come up during the meeting and laid over until this time should be entered 
into and discussed. Should any questions arise that cannot be answered by the study 
club leader or some other brother present, these questions may be submitted to us and 
we will endeavor to answer them for you in time for your next meeting. 


Supplemental references on the subjects treated in this paper will be found at the end of 
the article. 


PART XVI - ENDLESS LIFE 



"Tis true; 'tis certain; man though dead retains 
Part of himself; the immortal mind remains." 


THESE WORDS, written by Homer 3,000 years ago, remind us how that ages before 
the ferment of modem thought and all the crusades of our modem religions, men 
believed in immortality as we do now. If one were to push himself behind Homer 
into an age long anterior to his, and as ancient to him as his is to us, one would and 
men cherishing the same hope. Imhotep, the father of architecture in stone, builder to 
the Egyptian King Zoser, lived 5,000 years ago, but for all that he believed in 
immortality as did Homer. And so with those to whom Imhotep looked back as to 
those grown ancient to him; and also with them in their turn; and so on to the 
beginning of things when the first half- wild hunter paused long enough in his search 
of meat to gaze wistfully across lovely valleys, where floating gossamers reminded 
him how frail and how fleeting is human life. 


It is useless to try to prove by logic or by demonstration the immortality of man. We 
believe it, there is an end of it! And we do not believe it because we have proved it, 
but we try to prove it because we already believe it. It is a hope, a kind of inward 
certainty which finds its support not in this fact or in that, but in the cast and colour of 
life as a whole. It rises up into our minds like an exaltation from all our thoughts, all 
our experiences, all our dreams, as the odour that drifts across a summer field distills 
from numberless unnoted plants. We are never so puzzled as when we are challenged 
to give a reasoned proof of this hope: and we are never so unreasonable as when we 
cease to believe it. Men everywhere and always have believed it not because priests 
have taught them or because scientists have found out the secret of it, but because life 
itself has taught them, and it is something that the universe itself is always whispering 
to them. The priests and the churches have not created the belief: it is the belief that 
has made the priests and churches, and no amount of ignorance, baseness, or 
superstition appears able to blot out that great hope. The cannibals cling to it, and we 
ourselves though we sleep in a gutter, hear it announced within that whispering 
gallery which we call the soul. 


"Though inland far we be, 



Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 


Which brought us hither." 


How long have men believed in immortality? Who was Homer? Imhotep? Why do 
you believe in immortality? How would you set about to prove it? How do we know 
that men have always believed it? 


It is impossible to form any mental picture of the future life. No two religions 
describe it in the same way, and some of them, ancient Buddhism, for example, have 
refused to describe it at all. Our modem spiritists who follow in the train of Sir 
Oliver Lodge, Conan Doyle, Camile Flammarion and their school, believe themselves 
to have received authentic news from the Beyond but unfortunately they have never 
been able to agree as to the nature of things in that unknown realm. It appears that 
such descriptions as are given through the mediums, ouija boards and such other 
occult means of communication usually conform in a general way to the 
preconceptions of the spiritists themselves. The Eskimo spiritist is told that heaven is 
a beautiful place full of icebergs and polar bears; the American Indian leams that it is 
a happy hunting ground; the Chinese spiritist - spiritism has been developed in China 
to a degree of respectability and perfection never attained elsewhere - is informed that 
heaven is a gloried China organized strictly in accord with the principles of ancestor 
worship. All this would indicate that if bona fide communications ever do penetrate 
the veil the conditions are such as to preclude the transmission of accurate or definite 
information, so that spiritists themselves are in like case with the rest of us who find 
that eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entered into the mind of man to 
conceive what the future life is like. 


Nevertheless it is difficult to cherish even the thinnest hope of a continued life 
without trying to fashion some sort of conception of it, because the mind cannot 
otherwise handle the idea at all. Because we hold immortality as a belief we are 
compelled to think it as a thought, and it is this psychological necessity, perhaps, that 
has led men in every country and in all ages to make for themselves some picture of 
heaven. One should not try to quarrel with this, because one cannot do so 



successfully: man is so made that he must behave in this manner, and that is an end of 
it. 


But it is for this reason, 1 believe, that we should be all the more careful that our 
thinking about the future life be strictly reasonable. If our nature compels us to think 
out some conception of immortality, that same nature similarly compels us to fashion 
a conception that won't insult the intelligence or fly in the face of known facts. It is 
necessary to be reasonable while we reason about Eternal Life. It seems to me - and I 
speak here only for myself - that this principle in itself is one of the teachings of 
Freemasonry concerning this subject. Our Fraternity leaves it to each individual to 
fashion his own conceptions of the Beyond but at the same time, and by all the arts at 
its command, persuades its votaries ever to remain in the Light, to seek more Light, 
and to fear to walk farther than the Light can lead them: and this Light itself is, of 
course, nothing other than reason, and knowledge, and right thinking. When the 
subject passes beyond into the darkness of the unknowable it is better to cease 
pursuing it further, lest we fall into superstition. It is better to remain agnostic about 
what the future life is like than to hold fast to unreason. 


How do you picture the future life in your own mind? What is spiritism? Name a few 
leading spiritists now living. Do spiritists agree among themselves as to the future 
life? Give an example of some conception of the future life that is contradicted by 
facts as we know them, and that is unreasonable. Why should we try to make our 
picture of the future life as reasonable as possible? 


It is both safe and wise to hold fast to the principle that all reality is bound up together 
into a great unity - for the which reason we call it a Universe - and that one part of 
this system does not contradict or give the lie to any other part. There is no good 
reason to suppose that death makes any profound change in the scheme of things. 
Death is a part of the Universe and always has been and, it may possibly prove, 
always will be. It is reasonable to suppose that the Universe will be the same after we 
are dead as it was before, and that therefore the "future life," as we call it (it is no 
longer "future" to those now living it) will in all essentials be of a piece with this 
present life. Why should we expect marvels, wonders, and impossibilities there when 



such things are not found here? What right have we to suppose that the experience of 
death will change our world out of all recognition, and transform ourselves into 
beings utterly different from what we are? 


"What is human is immortal," said Bulwer-Lytton. Why is not the reverse also true? 
"What is immortal is human." We are here in closest relation to an earth, out of the 
surface of which we labour to wrest our bread each and every one of us is the member 
of one race - the human - and of some one grand division thereof, in consequence of 
which we differ greatly in colour, language, appearance, and a hundred other things. 
The race as a whole is equally divided between two sexes, the members of which are 
so unlike each other in many important respects as to cause one to believe that sexual 
differences extend into the inmost recesses of human nature, and are not to be put on 
or off by any possible change. We are each one organized in a physical body, and it is 
ceaselessly necessary for us to work, to strive, to endure, to eat and sleep, and to 
suffer. It may be that all these things will be carried over into whatever life, or lives, 
may be waiting for us beyond. They are neither superficial nor accidental and are so 
woven into the general scheme of things that it is difficult to understand how human 
life could know itself after death with all such things omitted. 


In spite of one's self such a discussion leads into theology, the most irritating of all 
subjects, and the least appropriate to these pages. In a field where no landmarks are 
marked out for us we are necessarily forced to fall back on private opinion, a thing I 
have done throughout this paper, and with the most cordial invitation to the reader to 
disagree if he is so disposed. I have no interest as a Mason in theological beliefs 
concerning the future life save to secure for ourselves a principle that will guarantee 
for us the full protection of the present life and all its values. It may be said that what 
a man believes about the future is his own private affair and should be respected as 
such. This is very true as long as the man's beliefs about the life to come do not 
seriously interfere with the life that now is, a thing that often happens. If my beliefs 
cause me to be illiberal or harsh, or unkind, or if they are such as to destroy my 
happiness, then my beliefs become matters of concern to my fellows, and they have a 
right to challenge me thereon. It is true, as I remarked above, that Freemasonry 
leaves the fashioning of this religious belief to the individual, nevertheless the 
Fraternity's spirit and teachings are distinctly opposed to beliefs that lead a man into 
unbrotherly behaviour or unmasonic conduct. What Masonry has to teach concerning 
immortality is necessarily of a piece with its other teachings. If democracy, equality, 
charity, brotherly love, truth, kindliness, and honourable labour are good things now 



they cannot cease to be good things in the life to come. If such things are of God in 
this life it is hardly possible that they will cease to be divine in the next life. 


If a man were to ask me point-blank, "what, in so many words, does Freemasonry 
teach about the endless life?" I should be hard put to make a reply "Freemasonry does 
not teach anything about it after the manner of an old-fashioned church catechism, but 
all its rites and ceremonies, its spirit and its laws are filled with immortality as the sky 
is suffused with light. Immortality is the motif of the Masonic symphony. 


There is one word to be said in addition. In the great drama of the Third Degree there 
are things done and said that give one a new and enlarged conception of everlasting 
life. The initiate has it brought home to him that if there are some things which abide 
for ever, so that they are undestroyed by all the deaths that are, it is possible to search 
out such things now, and to mould his life about them, and give them the place of 
control at the center of the heart, so that one can live the eternal life in the midst of 
time. This is not easily gained, as many a man has learned to his cost: there are 
ruffians at the gates, lions in the path, and often it will seem to one who seeks this 
Royal Secret that his days are become a succession of deaths. 


"He who flagged not in the earthly strife, 
From strength to strength advancing - only he 
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, 
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life." 


What do we mean by saying that we live in a universe? What is your theory about the 
part death plays in the life of man? What are the things in human nature least liable to 
change after death? What is meant by theology? What kind of beliefs about the future 
life cause men to be harsh and unkind? What has Masonry to teach concerning 
immortality? What is the meaning of the drama of the Third Degree? In what way 
does the Third Degree teach eternal life? 



SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES 


THE BUILDER: 


Vol. I (1915) - Immortality - The Circle, p. 133; After Death Shall We Live 
Again? P. 300; Realization of the Truth, p. 21 1. 

Vol. II (1916) - Reflections on the Philosophy of Albert Pike, p. 9; The Spirit 
of Man, P. 187; The Three Grips, P. 30; The Third Degree, p. 126; 
Toleration, p. 265. 

Vol. Ill (1917) - The Landmarks, p. 21 1; The Feet of Time, p.25; Life After 
Death, p. 123. 

Vol. IV (1918) - Where the Rainbow Never Fades, p. 162; The Ancient 
Mysteries p. 223; Symbolism of the Three Degrees, p. 291. 

Vol. V (1919) - Studies in Blue Lodge Symbolism, p. 136; Eleusinian 
Mysteries, p 240; The Plan of Freemasonry p. 266; Immortality, p. 145. 


Vol. VI (1920) - Psychical Research, p. 918; Eternal Life, October C.C.B. p. 



3; Freemasonry Among the American Indians, p. 295. 


Vol. VII (1921) - The Immortality of the Soul, p. 50. 

Vol. VIII (1922) - Death, the Liberator, p. 1 1; The Future Life, p. 126. 

Mackey's Encyclopedia-(Revised Edition): 

Buddhism, p. 122. See also related topics under Aranyaka, p. 74; Aryan, 
p. 80; Mahabharata, Mahadeva, Mahakasyapa, p. 460; Pitaka, p. 569; 
Puranas, p. 601, Ramayana, p. 607; Sakti, p. 661, Sastra and Sat B'hai, p. 
664; Shaster, p. 685; Shesha, p. 686; Sruti, p. 710; Upadevas, Upanishad, 
p. 818; Vedanga, Vedas, p. 824; Zenana, Zennaar, p. 878. 

Egyptian Hieroglyphs, p. 231; Egyptian Mysteries, pp. 232-234; Immortality 
of the Soul, p. 347; Master Mason or Third Degree, p. 474; Religion of 
Masonry, pp. 617-619; Speculative Masonry, p. 704; Spiritualizing, p. 706; 
Spiritual Lodge, p. 706; Sublime, p. 732. 

— o — 


OUR STUDY CLUB PLAN 



Our Masonic Study Club Course, of which the foregoing paper by Brother Haywood is 
a part, was begun in THE BUILDER early in 1917. Previous to the beginning of the 
present series on "Philosophical Masonry," or "The Teachings of Masonry," as we have 
titled it, were published some forty-three papers covering in detail "Ceremonial 
Masonry" and "Symbolical Masonry" under the following several divisions: "The 
Work of a Lodge," "The Lodge and the Candidate," "Lirst Steps," "Second Steps," and 
"Third Steps." A complete set of these papers up to January 1st, 1922, are obtainable in 
the bound volumes of THE BUILDER for 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920 and 1921. 


hollowing is an outline of the subjects covered by the current series of study club 
papers by Brother Haywood: 


THE TEACHINGS OF MASONRY 


1 . - General Introduction. 


2. - The Masonic Conception of Human Nature. 


3. - The Idea of Truth in Freemasonry. 


4. - The Masonic Conception of Education. 


5. - Ritualism and Symbolism. 


6. - Initiation and Secrecy. 



7. - Masonic Ethics. 


8. - Equality. 


9. - Liberty. 


10. - Democracy. 


11.- Masonry and Industry. 


12. - The Brotherhood of Man. 


13. - Freemasonry and Religion. 


14. - Universality 


15. - The Fatherhood of God. 


16. - Endless Life. 


17. - Brotherly Aid. 



18. - Schools of Masonic Philosophy. 


This systematic course of Masonic study has been taken up and carried out in monthly 
and semi-monthly meetings of lodges and study clubs all over the United States and 
Canada, and in several instances in lodges overseas. 


The course of study has for its foundation two sources of Masonic information, THE 
BUILDER and Mackey's Encyclopedia. 


HOW TO ORGANIZE AND CONDUCT STUDY CLUB MEETINGS 


Study clubs may be organized separate from the lodge, or as a part of the work of the 
lodge. In the latter case the lodge should select a committee, preferably of three "live" 
members who shall have charge of the study club meetings. The study club meetings 
should be held at least once a month (excepting during July and August, when the 
study club papers are discontinued in THE BUILDER), either at a special 
communication of the lodge called for the purpose, or at a regular communication at 
which no business (except the lodge routine) should be transacted, all possible time to 
be devoted to study club purposes. 


After the lodge has been opened and all routine business disposed of, the Master should 
turn the lodge over to the chairman of the study club committee. The committee should 
be fully prepared in advance on the subject to be discussed at the meeting. All members 
to whom references for supplemental papers have been assigned should be prepared 
with their material, and should also have a comprehensive grasp of Brother Haywood's 
paper by a previous reading and study of it. 


PROGRAM FOR STUDY CLUB MEETINGS 



1. Reading of any supplemental papers on the subject for the evening which may have 
been prepared by brethren assigned such duties by the chairman of the study club 
committee. 


2. Reading of the first section of Brother Haywood's paper. 


3. Discussion of this section, using the questions following this section to bring out 
points for discussion. 


4. The subsequent sections of the paper should then be taken up and disposed of in the 
same manner. 


5. Question Box. Invite questions on any subject in Masonry, from any and all brethren 
present. Let the brethren understand that these meetings are for their particular benefit 
and enlightenment and get them into the habit of asking all the questions they may be 
able to think of. If at the time these questions are propounded no one can answer them, 
send them in to us and we will endeavor to supply answers to them in time for your 
next study club meetmg. 


FURTHER INFORMATION 


The foregoing information should enable study club committees to conduct their 
meetings without difficulty. However, if we can be of assistance to such committees, or 
any individual member of lodges and study clubs at any time such brethren are invited 
to feel free to communicate with us. 



O 


EDITORIAL 


THE BLUE LODGE HAS FIRST LIEN ON A MASON 


ONCE A MAN has begun to take an active part in the activities of the Higher Degrees 
(as they have come to be called) it is natural for him to become engrossed in them at 
the expense of his Blue Lodge duties, and that because those degrees offer so much 
greater variety. Instead of three degrees these other bodies, along with their auxiliaries, 
offer a half hundred or so, and instead of one group of men there are several, all of 
which makes for sustained interest as against the comparative monotony of Blue Lodge 
work. 


The many brethren who succumb to this appeal are not to be too roughly scolded 
because they but follow the lead of nature. Nevertheless, and even so, they should all 
stop, look, and listen. Not one "higher" grade can ever rise above the level of the Craft 
lodge, which is fons et origina for the whole Masonic system. As the Blue Lodge goes 
so goes Masonry. If the Blue Lodge sinks into control by the least competent groups 
how much better off will the other bodies be in the course of time? The whole York 
Rite and Scottish Rite systems are so utterly dependent on the health and strength of 
Craft Masonry that no man can be a friend to them who is not loyal to his Blue Lodge, 
so that the more zealous a man is for the prosperity of any of the additional grades the 
more active should he be in the work of the three degrees. The Blue Lodge has in the 
nature of things first lien on a Mason's activities. 


It is of interest in this connection to read a word written in the field and with no thought 
of a literary public. In a report to his Grand Master, Brother H.E. Austin, a Deputy 
District Grand Master of North Carolina, gave expression to some sterling good sense: 



"Our Masons who have the capacity, the initiative, the personality, are not attending the 
Blue Lodge. They are not occupying the stations, they are not exercising leadership in 
that branch of Masonry that is fundamental and where good leadership is so essential. 
Our new members are not brought into contact with that type of Mason who can give 
them the vision of a true conception of what Masonry is. They are not receiving the 
inspiration, not getting the social contacts that they expect and have a right to expect. 


"Our stronger Masons must come to a realizing sense that they are doing Masonry a 
real harm and putting Masonry into jeopardy, when they segregate themselves to the 
Commandery, the Chapter, the Scottish Rite, etc., leaving the novice and the poorly 
qualified to conduct the affairs of the local Blue Lodge. 


"1 don't believe the members of the higher orders have realized this situation." 


* * * 


THE DOORS WIDE OPEN 


One of our best admired contemporaries, a Masonic monthly edited with discretion and 
printed with taste, carries on its cover a symbolic representation of the doors that lead 
into the Masonic Temple. Significantly enough, these portals, which swing inward as 
all portals of initiation necessarily do, are wide open, and it is evident that they are 
intended to remain so. 


Is not this a misinterpretation of the actual facts? is it not true that the portals of 
Freemasonry are closed to all without, save when they are opened to them from within? 
In a sense, yes, but not in the sense interpreted by this symbolic representation. For the 
real door that opens into the Temple of Freemasonry is not that of wood which swings 
upon its iron hinges, but the will, the purpose, and the qualifications, mental and moral, 
which exist in a Due man. To all such who are thus properly qualified the doors of 



Freemasonry are ever open. Yea, in a real sense, as hinted by one of the old texts of the 
V.S.L., it is the true and upright man who is himself the door to the Fraternity; for 
when all is said and done, Freemasonry is not a thing of stones, wood, doors, buildings, 
and external trappings, but rather is it a circle of open minds and true hearts to which 
any man is welcome if he be worthy of such a place. 


Indeed, it is everlastingly true that we can enter into nothing for which we are not 
inwardly prepared. What is music to a man who has no music in his ear? Of what use 
are vast libraries of books to him who cannot or will not read? what avail ten thousand 
schools to one who prefers darkness to light? of what value are all the just laws of a 
noble land to the citizen who has no conscience in his breast? All the great true eternal 
things in life, the things which are life itself, if life is to be anything more than mere 
existence, are for them only who are truly prepared for them. The doors are ever open 
day and night. All the millions of Freemasons cannot keep one man out of 
Freemasonry who is already a Freemason in his soul. 


* * * 


GUILDS AND MASON'S MARKS IN THE ORIENT 


Among the men of this nation who are now doing most to rescue the rest of us from 
foggy thinking and foolish creeds Professor John Dewey holds a privileged place, 
seeing that he is a teacher of teachers, and a writer whose books are revered by young 
men and women in all the continents. I do not know whether he is a Mason or not: if he 
is not he should be, and could be too, for his great work on "Education and 
Democracy" proves him worthy and well qualified. That he can write as well as think, 
and is full of the human qualities of tenderness, humor, and friendliness, is proved by 
his "Letters from China and Japan," a volume of letters which he and his wife wrote 
back to their children during a year in the Orient. 


But this is not a book review. Ye scribe calls attention to the fact that "Letters from 
China and Japan" contains two items of some interest to Masonic students. In a letter 



written from Peking (page 261) Professor Dewey remarks, while writing of a visit to 
the Higher Normal School of that city, that "the head of the industrial department, who 
acted as our guide and host, has been organizing the 'national industry' activity in 
connection with the student's agitation. He is now, among other things, trying to 
organize apprentice schools under guild control." To those who have supposed craft 
guilds a thing long extinct this should prove a clue worth following. On page 72 is 
another item of similar import, and proves how natural and how inevitable, and in all 
countries, has been the employment of "mason's marks." While describing a reception 
tendered him in the Arsenal Grounds at Tokyo he writes a paragraph which shows that 
Japanese carpenters employed marks in the old times, just as Masons did in England 
and on the Continent. "On one side the Imperial Government is theocratie, and this is 
the most sensitive side, so that historical criticism or analysis of old documents is not 
indulged in, the Ancestors being Gods or the Gods being Ancestors. One bureaucratic 
gentleman felt sure that the divine ancestors must have left traces of their own language 
somewhere, so he investigated the old shrines, and sure enough he found on sonle of 
the beams characters different from Chinese or Japanese. These he copied and showed 
for the original language - till some carpenters saw them and explained that they were 
the regular guild marks." 


Both China and Japan are rich, historically and contemporaneously, in matters of 
peculiar interest to Freemasons. The unfortunate thing is that much of the literature - 
perhaps one should write it "literature" - purporting to deal with secret societies, 
guilds, etc., in the Orient has been produced by cotton-headed gentlemen utterly devoid 
of accurate knowledge. The men and women of the Orient are human beings, not 
magicians, sages, and miracle workers: their history is real history to be studied like 
any other history; and they live in a real world among cold facts where 2 plus 2 equals 
4, as among us. Books about the Orient should be written in the pragmatic spirit, which 
is to say, in the spirit that pervades the letters of Professor Dewey, who is for the 
present the high priest of pragmatism in this country. 


* * * 


WHEN IS A MAN A "HIGHER GRADE" MASON? 



A Freemason is a man who believes that the power of God is behind and beneath him, 
like the ground under his feet, and that the love of God is over him like the sky: who 
believes in the endlessness of human life; who believes that it is the nature of man to be 
friendly; and who allies himself with the Honorable Society of Ancient Free and 
Accepted Masons, in order to join with like-minded men in the furtherance of such 
ideals. When such a Mason has by his intelligent faithfulness surpassed the rank and 
file of his fellows so that he understands and practices Freemasonry more than they do, 
he becomes entitled to enroll among the members of the "higher grades." Unless his 
membership in those honorable ranks is thus honestly won, all his badges and 
distinctions and the long train of his titles are no more than the rattle of an empty 
wagon on the street. 


— o — 

INVITATION 

BY BRO. GERALD NANCARROW, INDIANA 

"I shall not gild thy house, my son," 

Breathed God upon His plan. 

"I have laid the chisel by thy side, 

Come, carve thyself a man." 

"For even so near to me are Thou 
That were I less than I, 

I jealous were of mine own work 
And would not let thee try." 



"Come build thee strong and true and high 
With these bright tools ye see, 

A kingly mansion, O my Son! 

And thou shalt rule with Me!" 

— o — 

Masonic links compose a sacred chain 
Of holy brightness and unmeasured length; 

The world, with selfish rust and reckless stain, 

May mar its beauty but not touch its strength. 

— o — 

THE LIBRARY 

THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF FREEMASONRY 


Mackey's Revised History of Freemasonry, Robert I. Clegg. Seven volumes, De Luxe 
fabrikoid binding. Published by the Masonic History Company, 225 North Michigan 
Avenue, Chicago, III. For sale by The National Masonic Research Society, Anamosa, 
Iowa. Price $56.00. 



SOME FIELDS of reading and research are complete in themselves, so that a man 
never exhausts them or grows weary but finds his interest new every morning and his 
delight growing by what it feeds upon. Subjects less rich in resources are exhausted at 
last and pall upon one, but these larger subjects are inexhaustible so that nobody ever 
comes to the end of them, and he who has given his life to them feels at the end like Sir 
Isaac Newton who had merely snatched a handful of sand from the limitless supplies of 
the ocean. All the major sciences, the fine arts, the larger industries, some forms of 
business, and a few other fields more difficult to classify, such as theology and 
philosophy, are of such a character. They constitute in themselves a complete system of 
culture, so that a man who makes himself at home with them achieves for himself an 
education which, though it may always be enriched by additions from other sources, is 
nevertheless complete and satisfying in and of itself. To become the servant of any one 
of these major arts and sciences is to be put into possession of those truths and uses of 
the mind whereby one becomes a matured man, fruitful in labors and worthy of dignity 
and honor. He is like one that has won at last to a mountain top - his position puts him 
into possession of the whole country. And, so far as that is concerned, it matters little 
what mountain he has elected for his own, if only it be one that gives him a 
commanding position. 


Freemasonry is such a subject. It is not as public as some, or as popular as others, and 
its nature and extent may not always be known to its own sons, but for all that it is, like 
one of the sciences, or professions, or an art, a world within the world, a life inside life, 
a complete circle of interest inside of which any man may find a rich culture. It 
infinitives itself in all directions, one of its interests leading to another and that to a 
third and so on in an endless chain, until one discovers that he who ascends the mount 
of Masonic learning is master of one of the major peaks, and in possession of a vast 
country. "I have been studying Masonry for thirty years," once remarked our veteran 
colleague and brother, J.T. Thorp, "and don't know much about it now," the contrast 
being not to the paucity of the rewards of such long study, but to the inexhaustibleness 
of the subject studied. The life-long pursuit of Masonic knowledge is one of the most 
richly rewarding activities in which any man can engage. For, as Albert Pike wrote 
when himself grown old, "There is nothing which will so well remunerate a man, when 
the days of his life are shortening to the winter solstice, as faithful service in the true 
interest of Masonry." The Craft is as large as the world itself, and somewhere or other 
connects with every vital human interest on the periphery of life. 



"A Mason's ways are 
A type of Existence; 
And his persistence 
Is as the days are 
Of men in this world." 


For these reasons I refuse to think of Freemasonry as being merely a lodge, or even as 
being nothing more than a Fraternity. Neither do I like to think of it as one among 
many secret societies, which have a curious but not an urgent interest. Freemasonry is 
one of the great public institutions like the home, government, the courts, the church, 
and the public school. It has played its own great part in history, and has for itself its 
own long chapter in the troubled annals of our race. Our clubs and societies are little 
sanctuaries by the way, kindly and cheerful places of refreshment. Freemasonry is a 
great home at the end of the road in which men may find work, food and peace all their 
days. To grow old in its service, to leam all its ways, to be a faithful son to it, is to live 
such a life as that described in the First Psalm where a good man is described as a tree 
planted by living waters. 


The riches of Freemasonry do not lie on the surface. There are many obstacles to be 
met and many difficulties to be overcome by the man who would possess himself of it, 
especially if he seeks to appropriate it intellectually. The ritual is to the casual member 
sealed and hidden and written in a dead language. The symbols are as mute as the 
hieroglyphics of Egypt to one who has not the key. The philosophy of the Craft is not a 
fool's paradise of easy ideas for children to play with. Above all - and it is to this that I 
call special attention - the history of the Order has not always been made safe or 
available to Masons, especially to those without time or gifts for laborious research. 
There is no virtue in these facts: quite the contrary! The ritual should be unsealed to 
every Mason, the symbols interpreted, the philosophy be made plain, and the story of 
the Craft straightforwardly told in plain language. There are many mysteries, and 
necessarily so, in Freemasonry, but there need be no mystification. 



To my own mind the great value of the newly revised edition of Mackey's History of 
Freemasonry lies in the fact that it now presents to each man a key to these 
unsearchable riches of Masonry. In the language of one of the old mystics, "It puts a 
man at home in the house." The Fraternity's own past, which is one of its greatest 
treasures, and which, more than anything else, is fit to inspire a Mason with reverence 
and love for it, is brought out into the open, into the sunlight, and made available to the 
common man who can't read Hebrew, Greek, or Medieval English. 


To read through these seven volumes is like going on a journey through many lands, 
with stop-overs in great cities, and side trips among ancient ruins. One begins with 
Prehistoric Masonry. He reads the story of the various Legends of the Craft, and learns 
about the Old Manuscripts, with digressions into the quaint stories of Lamech's Sons, 
the Tower of Babel, the Legends of Nimrod, and the Legend of Euclid. The origins of 
the Fraternity are admittedly a mystery but certain of our great men have circulated 
hypotheses about it, and these are reviewed in chapters on Anderson, Preston, 
Hutchinson and Oliver. The author then undertakes an account of his own and begins, 
where it is necessary to begin, with the Temple of Solomon: thereafter come the 
Dionysian Artificers, the Ancient Mysteries, the Druids, the Crusades - a fascinating 
chapter - the Scottish Templars, the Story of the House of Stuart, of the Jesuits, and of 
the intriguing tale of Oliver Cromwell and his supposed connection with the Order. 


This is but one-seventh of the journey. In Volume II there is a much needed chapter on 
The Royal Society. Then come the occult groups, the tale of which has been repeated 
numberless times but never exhausted; the Astrologers, the Rosicrucians, the 
Pythagoreans, the Gnostics, and the Essenes. Then follows an excellent critical account 
of the Hiram Abif Legend, and the first main portion of the work, Prehistoric Masonry, 
is completed. 


The History of Freemasonry in the eyes of the author, and strictly so-called, begins on 
page 481, of Volume II, with the Roman Collegia. It is a great world in itself and there 
is not space here to follow the itinerary further, or even to sketch in an account of the 
main heads, which are very many. If any Mason is desirous of possessing himself of 
the "unsearchable riches" of Masonry he can do so in these seven volumes. To read 
them is an education, and a discipline that every Mason owes to himself. 



The ground plan of this magnum opus was laid out, and great stores of data 
accumulated, by Albert G. Mackey, to whose enduring and gentle fame this issue of 
THE BUILDER is dedicated. It was Dr. Mackey's hope to make this the crown of his 
life's labor but unhappily death cut him off before he had completed it. Brother William 
R. Singleton took his place and brought the manuscript to shape for publication and 
gave it to the world in a shape now long familiar. It is probable that more men have 
been given an adequate sense of the vast scope of Freemasonry by this History than by 
any other work, with possibly the exception of the Encyclopedia. But it happens that 
Mackey laid down his pen at the very time when a new era of Masonic scholarship was 
reaching its meridian: Lyon, Crawley, Gould, Speth, Hughan and many others of equal 
fame had organized a new school of Masonic scholarship, and there is no telling what 
will yet be the outcome of their labors, seeing that every year finds some new bit of the 
hitherto unknown discovered, explored and claimed for Masonic knowledge. Owing to 
this new uncovering of rich deposits of lore it became necessary at last to revise the 
History. This difficult and responsible task was entrusted to the general editorship of 
Brother Robert I. Clegg, than whom there is not in all the land a better known or more 
beloved Masonic student and writer, and whose name is thrice familiar to these pages. 

It is to him, and to the equally indefatigable labors of Brother Walter C. Burrell, 
President of The Masonic History Publishing Company, that we are indebted for the 
new edition of the old familiar work. 


As to the calibre of the scholarship revealed by Brother Clegg's work of revision I 
cannot do better than to quote a paragraph from a letter from my friend David E. W. 
Williamson, to whose learning this Society has been often indebted: 


“I have just completed the seven volumes and am much impressed with it, as I wrote to 
Brother Clegg. His own work is in evidence everywhere and the immense erudition 
displayed makes the book a real Masonic library. The old history has been improved at 
so many points as to make the Revised History virtually a new work. Dr. Gasho, a 
brother who is much interested in all these things, has the edition to which Singleton 
contributed, with the final chapter by Hughan, and it is only necessary to compare 
volume by volume to realize that here Bro. Clegg and his associates have brought 
every subject down to date." 



The seven new volumes are a delight to see especially as regards the binding and the 
illustrations. The index is very complete, and there are many footnotes. Take it up one 
side and down the other it would be difficult anywhere to find a set of books that will 
more easily enable a man of modest equipment and of little leisure to make his own 
all "the height and depth, and length and breadth, and the unsearchable riches" of 
Freemasonry. H.L. Haywood. 


* * * 


A NEW EDITION OF MACKEY'S SYMBOLISM 


"Mackey's Symbolism of Freemasonry," revised by Robert I. Clegg; published by 
Masonic History Company Chicago. De Luxe fabrikoid binding. For sale by Nationai 
Masonic Research Society. Price $3.65 postpaid. 


Dear old Mackey! as one turns over the aging pages of the old books he seems as near 
and as alive as ever. He is always quiet, always gentle, and he never resorts to the tricks 
of the writers' trade to capture attention, but for all that there is a certain virility about 
him that age cannot wither or custom stale. Of all the writers of the older school he is 
the most contemporaneous, and far and away the most influential. More copies of his 
works are being sold today than of any recent writer and there is no doubt but that this 
will long continue. Mackey is a great and universal Masonic influence with whom 
every student and reader of Masonry must acquaint himself. 


Mackey was at his best in writing on the symbolism of Freemasonry. It was a task for 
which the bent of his mind and the nature of his learning peculiarly fitted him. Later 
writers, many of them, have been more scientific, and any number have been more 
clever, but few have possessed that peculiar quality of mind that set Mackey apart as a 
symbologist of the first order. 



Masonic symbolism is a subject which, by virtue of its own nature, does not very 
rapidly outgrow itself. Mackey issued the first edition of his "Symbolism of 
Freemasonry" in 1869. Since that date the whole field of Masonic scholarship has been 
revolutionized from top to bottom; the school of Preston and Oliver has vanished and 
time has outlawed most of what they wrote; but, owing to the nature of the subject, 
there is comparatively little of the "Symbolism" that must be altogether discarded. The 
famous "nineteen propositions" of the first chapter which "contain a brief but succinct 
view of the progress of Freemasonry," and the arguments concerning "The Noachidae" 
and "Primitive" and "Spurious" "Freemasonry of Antiquity," are now of very little 
value, and so with a few other pages here and there. Compared with the total bulk of 
the work this is almost negligible. 


Brother Robert I. Clegg, editor of the new edition of the book, has added two 
paragraphs to Mackey's original Preface and has included a valuable chapter of his own 
by way of "An Introduction to Symbolism," but elsewhere has made few changes. 


"Up to this point," writes Brother Clegg in his addition to the Preface, "we have used 
the preface written by the great student and need now but explain the work of revision, 
Brother Mackey's examination of Masonic symbols is today as of yore admirable and 
stimulating. No Freemason at all worthy of the name can read it without pleasure and 
profit. All that was necessary for us to do was to make corrections of errors that crept 
into the book, and add here and there such comments as seemed to us to be most 
helpful to the reader in the light of our present-day knowledge of the institution. 


"The chapter on an Introduction to Symbolism is new and prepared by the reviser for 
this edition. Here as elsewhere the purpose has been to do as Brother Mackey would no 
doubt have wished the work to be done; to correct the text with every respect for the 
lofty purpose of the original author, and to add such amendments as would in the same 
way better facilitate the reader's progress." 


Again Brother Clegg writes in his Introduction: "Brother Mackey put into his study of 
Symbolism the ripened researches of many years. No other book of his more clearly 
shows the depth of his reading and reflection. His was the wisdom that never lacked 



words of simplest worth to make it known and understood. None so clearly as he could 
fit lucid language to the exposition of what he knew of Freemasonry. And none packed 
into his sentences more meaty food for reflection." 


The titles of the thirty-two chapters will furnish a reader with a more adequate 
conception of the contents of the book than a great deal of description could do. They 
are: An Introduction to Symbolism; Preliminary, Origin and Progress of Freemasonry; 
Noachidae; Primitive Freemasonry of Antiquity; Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity; 
Ancient Mysteries; Dionysiac Artificers; Union of Speculative and Operative 
Freemasonry at the Temple of Solomon; Traveling Freemasons of the Middle Ages; 
Disseverance of the Operative Element; System of Symbolic Instruction; Speculative 
Science and the Operative Art; Symbolism of Solomon's Temple; Form of the Lodge; 
Officers of a Lodge; Point within a Circle; Covering of the Lodge; Ritualistic 
Symbolism; Rite of Discalceation; Rite of Investiture; Symbolism of the Gloves; Rite 
of Circumambulation; Rite of Intrusting, and Symbolism of Light; Symbolism of the 
Comer Stone; Ineffable Name; Legends of Freemasonry; Legend of the Winding 
Stairs; Legend of the Third Degree; Sprig of Acacia; Symbolism of Labor; Stone of 
Foundation; Lost Word; and Synoptical Index. 


The new edition is bound in De Luxe fahrikoid binding in color and design to match 
the revised edition of Mackey's History of Freemasonry reviewed otherwhere in this 
issue. 


* * * 


THE BOUND VOLUME OF THE BUILDER FOR 1922 


The Bound Volume of THE BUILDER for 1922, bound in goldenrod buckram, title 
in gilt, published by The National Masonic Research Society, Anamosa, Iowa. Price 
postpaid $3.75 



This is to announce the advent of the Bound Volume of THE BUILDER for 1922, 
copies of which may now be had. Readers should investigate this bound volume: many 
of them will be surprised to discover how much it adds to the sightliness and 
convenience of twelve issues of this journal. When each monthly issue is printed a 
certain number of copies are especially prepared for binding. At the end of each year 
these twelve especially printed copies are placed together with a complete descriptive 
index of fourteen pages and securely bound in goldenrod buckram, with title label in 
gold. No covers are bound in. Every page is absolutely unused, and the whole is so 
numbered as to form a complete book of about 375 pages of the same size as THE 
BUILDER. In the index is furnished a guide to each and every item that has appeared 
during the year, along with cuts, authors, books, etc., by means of which one can 
locate anything at a moment's notice. The volume is beautiful in appearance, in 
typography, paper, illustrations, arrangement and size. It is an ideal Christmas gift for 
a Mason. 


This is the eighth of such volumes thus far issued by The National Masonic Research 
Society. Taken together these eight books constitute the most comprehensive and 
accurate Masonic library in existence. They contain more than 400 complete signed 
articles on important Masonic topics; hundreds of replies to questions about Masonry; 
and editorials, letters, poems and book reviews on nearly every matter of consequence 
connected with Freemasonry. Such a set of books is an ideal foundation for a private 
Masonic library. 


Nothing is of merely local or temporary interest. Everything is designed for 
permanency and for universality. THE BUILDER does not reflect sectional views; it 
does not represent any party or clique or rite; it is not published for commercial 
purposes. For these reasons a set of the Bound Volumes is not a file of old magazines, 
the interest of which must necessarily fade with the passage of time, but a set of books, 
the first page of which is as interesting as the last; an encyclopedia of Masonry, the 
value of which increases with the addition of each new Bound Volume. 


Contained within this set of books is a number of Masonic books published in serial 
form. He who owns the set possesses Pound's "Philosophy of Freemasonry"; Pound's 
"Lectures on Masonic Jurisprudence"; Ravenscroffs "The Comacines"; Haywood's 
"Symbolical Masonry"; Haywood's "The Teachings of Masonry"; Wright's "Woman 



and Freemasonry"; Wright's "Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry"; Pike's 
"Humanum Genus"; Lawrence's "Military Lodges"; Barry's "The Story of Old Glory"; 
Street's "Symbolism of the Three Degrees"; Goodwin's "Mormonism and Masonry," 
etc. 


* * * 


A VEST POCKET BOOK ON FREEMASONRY 


"What is Masonry," by Francis E. Lester, P.G.M., New Mexico. Published by the 
author, Mesilla Park, New Mexico. 


This is a vest pocket volume on a big subject. Brother Lester tells us in his 
introductory page that at the time he was raised he was unable to learn much about the 
institution of which he had become a member, or of the ceremonies in which he had 
participated. "The one thing that was missing was the kindly explanation by a brother 
of what relation Masonry, with its teaching and ritual, bore to the duties and 
responsibilities of daily life." This booklet of thirty pages, bound in blue paper, is a 
"kindly explanation" of many of the things about which a newly raised Mason is most 
anxious to learn, and to all such it is to be recommended. On the last page there is a 
list of some twenty or so books "suggested for supplementary reading": it is an 
excellent brief bibliography. Copies may be secured from the author. 


— o — 


PUBLICATIONS WANTED, FOR SALE, AND EXCHANGE 



We are constantly receiving inquiries from readers as to where they may obtain 
publications on Freemasonry and kindred subjects not offered in our Monthly Book 
List. Most of the books thus sought are out of print, but it may happen that other 
readers, owning copies, may be willing to dispose of the same. Therefore this column is 
set aside each month for such a service. And it is also hoped - and expected - that 
readers possessing very old or rare Masonic works will communicate the fact to THE 
BUILDER in behalf of general information. 


Postoffice addresses are here given in order that those buying and selling may 
communicate directly with each other. Brethren are asked to cancel notices as soon as 
their wants are supplied. 


In no case does TEIE BUILDER assume any responsibility whatsoever for publications 
thus bought, sold, exchanged or borrowed. 


WANTED 


By Bro. G. Alfred Lawrence, 142 West 86th St., New York, N. Y.: Proceedings of the 
Scottish Rite Body founded by Joseph Cemeau in New York City in 1808, of which De 
Witt Clinton was the first Grand Commander, and which body became united, in 1867, 
with the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, A. & A. S. R. Also 
Proceedings of the Supreme Council founded in New York by De La Motta, in 1813, 
by authority of the Southern Supreme Council, of which he was Grand Treasurer- 
General, these Proceedings from 1813 to 1860. 


By Bro. Frank R. Johnson, 306 East 10th St., Kansas City, Mo.: "The Year Book," 
published by the Masonic Constellations, containing the History of the Grand Council, 
R. & S. M., of Missouri. 



By Brother Silas H. Shepherd, Hartland, Wisconsin: "Catalogue of the Masonic 
Library of Samuel Lawrence"; "Second Edition of Preston's Illustrations of Masonry"; 
"The Source of Measures," by J. Ralston Skinner 1875, or second edition 1894; "Ars 
Quatuor Coronatorum," volumes I to XI inclusive. 


By Bro. Ernest E. Ford, 305 South Wilson Avenue, Alhambra, California: "Ars 
Quatuor Coronatorum," volumes 3 and 7, with St. John's Cards, also St. John's Cards 
for volumes 4 and 6; "Masonic Review," volumes 1, 2, 7, 31, 32 and 43 to 60, 
inclusive; "Voice of Masonry," volumes 2 to 12 inclusive, and volume 16; Transactions 
Supreme Council Southern Jurisdiction for the years 1882 and 1886; Original 
Proceedings of The General Grand Encampment Knights Templar for the years 1826 
and 1836. 


By Bro. George A. Lanzarotti, Casilla 126, Rancagua, Chile: All kinds of Masonic 
literature in Spanish. Write first quoting prices. 


By Brother L. Rask, 14 Alvey St., Schenectady, N. Y.: "Remarks upon Alchemy and 
the Alchemists," by E. A. Hitchcock, Janesville, N. Y., about 1866; "The Secret 
Societies of all Ages and Countries," by C. W. Heckethom; "Lost Language of 
Symbolism," by Harold Bayley, published by Lippincott; "Sacred Hermeneutics," by 
Davidson, Edinburgh, 1843; "Solar System of the Ancients Discovered," by J. Wilson, 
published by Longmans Co., London, 1856; "The Alphabet," by Isaac Taylor, Kegan, 
Paul, Trench & Co., 1883, or the edition of 1899 published by Scribners, New York; 
"Anacalypsis," by Godfrey Higgins, 1836, published by Longmans, Green & Co., 
London; "Ars Quatuor Coronatorum," any volume or volumes. 


By Brother N. W. J. Haydon, 664 Pape Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada: "The 
Beautiful Necessity," and "Architecture and Democracy," by Claude Bragdon. 


By the National Masonic Research Society, Anamosa, Iowa: "Discourses upon 
Architecture," by Dallaway, published in 1833; any or all volumes of "The American 
Freemasons' Magazine," published by J. F. Brennan, about 1860. 



By Brother E. A. Marsh, 820 Broad Ave. N. W., Canton, Ohio: "Numbers: Their 
Occult Power and Mystic Virtue," by William Wynn Westcott, published 1902 by the 
Theosophical Publishing Society. 


By Bro. D. D. Berolzheimer, 1 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y.: "Realities of 
Masonry," Blake, 1879; "Records of the Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masons," 
Condor, 1894; "Masonic Bibliography," Carson, 1873; "Origin of Freemasonry," 
Paine, 1811. 


FOR SAFE 


By Brother A. A. Bumand, 690 South Bronson Ave., Eos Angeles, California: Various 
Masonic publications including such as a complete set of "Ars Quatuor Coronatorum"; 
"History of Freemasonry in Scotland," by D. Murray Fyon, (original edition); Thomas 
Dunckerley, Faurence Dermott, etc. 


By Brother Frank R. Johnson, 306 East 10th St., Kansas City, Mo.: "History of 
Freemasonry," Mitchell, 2 volumes, sheep; "History of Freemasonry," Robert Freke 
Gould, 4 volumes, cloth in good condition; "History of Freemasonry," Albert G. 
Mackey, 7 volumes, linen cloth, new; Addison's "Knights Templar," Macoy, 1 volume, 
cloth; "Museum of Antiquity," Yaggy, 1 volume, morocco; "History and Cyclopedia of 
Freemasonry," Macoy and Oliver, new, full morocco. Also miscellaneous books. 


— o — 


THE QUESTION BOX 



THE BUILDER is an open forum for free and fraternal discussion. Each of its 
contributors writes under his own name, and is responsible for his own opinions. 
Believing that a unity of spirit is better than a uniformity of opinion, the Research 
Society, as such, does not champion any one school of Masonic thought as over against 
another, but offers to all alike a medium for fellowship and instruction, leaving each to 
stand or fall by its own merits. 


The Question Box and Correspondence Column are open to all members of the Society 
at all times. Questions of any nature on Masonic subjects are earnestly invited from our 
members, particularly those connected with lodges or study clubs which are following 
our Study Club course. When requested, questions will be answered promptly by mail 
before publication in this department. 


INFORMATION ABOUT THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CRISIS 


THE BUILDER for August interested me more than any copy I have ever seen. My 
copy is worn out with lending. Can you tell me where I can find some more literature 
like it? M.L.B., Virginia. 


The Bureau of Social and Educational Service of the Grand Lodge of New York issued 
as their Bulletin No. 3, for March 2, 1922, a twenty-four page booklet on "The Public 
School Crisis," in which was incorporated a valuable list of up-to-date pamphlets and 
booklets on the subject, written from every possible angle. The list could not be 
improved. 


American City Bureau, 154 Nassau Street, New York. Ask for "Know and Help Your 
Schools," Third Report of National Committee for Chamber of Commerce Cooperation 
with the Public Schools. George D. Strayer, Chairman. 



American Council of Education, Washington, D. C. Ask for reprint from School and 
Society, Vol. 13, No. 321, article by Samuel P. Capen. 


American Legion Weekly, 627 West 43d Street, New York. Ask for issue of Dec. 2, 
1921, article, "The American's Part in Americanism," by Warren G. Harding. Also 
Report of Conference of Board of Directors of National Education Association and 
Representatives of the American Legion, June 3, 1921, at Des Moines, Iowa. 


American Physical Education Review, 93 Westford Avenue, Springfield, Mass. Ask 
for "Report of Committee of Society of Directors of Physical Education in Colleges." 
Also "The Aims and Scope of Physical Education." 


Mrs. Rogers H. Bacon, 210 E. 61st Street, New York City, Chairman, Plan and 
Program Committee, Women's Clubs of Greater New York. Ask for "Report to Board 
of Education on School Building Conditions in New York City." 


Boston League of Women Voters, 553 Little Building, Boston, Mass. Ask for "How 
Our United States Spends Its Income," Leaflet, by E. B. Bosa. 


The Bureau of the Census, Washington, D. C. Ask for circular, "Composition and 
Characteristics of the Population." Also "Men and Women of Voting Age." Also 
"Citizenship of the Foreign Bom." 


United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D.C. Ask for "Report of the 
Commissioner for the year ended June 30, 1921." Also "Education for the 
Establishment of Democracy," Address by P. P. Claxton, late Commissioner of 
Education. Also "Cost of Education in the United States," Circular by P. P. Claxton. 
Also "Expenditures for Public Education in New York," Circular by P. P. Claxton. 



Bureau of Naturalization, Washington, D. C. Ask for "Annual Report of the 
Commissioner." 


Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Washington, D. C. Ask for "Schools, 
Citizenship, and Business," Civic Development Publication No. 4. 


Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. Ask for 
"Hearing on Illiteracy under H R 15402." 


The National Catholic Weekly, 225 West 39th Street, New York. Ask for "The Case 
Against the Smith-Towner Bill; Shall the Federal Government Control Our Schools ?" 
Pamphlet by Paul H. Blakely, Ph.D. 


National Education Association, 1201 16th Street N. W., Washington, D. C. Ask for 
"American Education Week," December 4-10, 1921," Bulletin No. 16. Also "A 
National Program for Education," Pamphlet. Also "Education and the Federal 
Government," Pamphlet, by Hugh S. Magill. Also "The SmithTowner Bill; A 
Discussion of Its Fundamental Principles and Brief History of Movement for a 
Department of Education," Pamphlet, by Hugh S. Magill. 


Hon. Horace M. Towner, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. H R 7. Ask for 
copy of "Towner-Sterling Bill." 


Public Education Association, 8 West 40th Street, New York. Ask for "A Primer of 
Public School Progress." Also Bulletins Nos. 4, 25, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 
113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120. 



Russell Sage Foundation, Lexington Avenue and 22d Street, New York. Ask for 
"Trend of School Costs," by Warren Randolph Burgess. $1.00. 


School and Society, 1 1 Liberty Street, Utica, N. Y. Ask for Inaugural Address of Frank 
Pierrepont Graves, as Commissioner of Education for the State of New York, "A State 
and Its Edcation," Vol. 14, No. 357. 


University of the State of New York, Albany, N. Y. Ask for "Americanization in 
Industry," by Caroline A. Whipple. Also "Community Organization and Program for 
Americanization Work," by William C. Smith. Also "Education Law as Amended to 
July 1, 1920," Bulletin 707. Also "Financial Independence of Boards of Education," 
Pamphlet by Frank B. Gilbert. Also "Immigrant Education," by William C. Smith. Also 
"Organization and Administration of Part-Time Schools," Bulletin No. 697. Also 
"School Health Service and Medical Inspection Law." 


* * * 


SCOTTISH RITE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES 


Can we tell me how many of our Presidents have been members of the Scottish Rite? 
M. K. L., Indiana. 


Your query was referred to Brother William L. Boy den, Librarian of the Supreme 
Council, Southern Jurisdiction, who kindly gave us information as follows: 


James A. Garfield was a member of the 14th degree of the Rite and made so in Mithras 
Lodge of Perfection, Washington, D. C., January 2, 1872. 



Andrew Johnson received the degrees from the 4th to the 32nd by communication, 
June 20, 1867, at the White House. 


Warren G. Harding received the 32nd degree in Scioto Consistory, Columbus, Ohio, 
January 5, 1921, and has been elected for the 33rd in the Northern Masonic 
Jurisdiction. 


* * * 


POEM WANTED 


I am in search of a poem based on the letters on the keystone and beginning with "H." 
The first lines are: 


"Happy the man whose thoughts will bear 
The rigid test of the compasses and square." 


Can some brother help me out? F. H. C., Wisconsin. 


Will some reader please give us this poem? 



STARRY DECKED HEAVEN 


Please inform me what is meant by a phrase in the monitor about the "clouded canopy 
or starry decked heaven." It is the word "decked" that puzzles me. B. M. T., Idaho. 


The word is of medieval origin and appears to have been common to Teutonic peoples. 
In old English it appears as "deccan" and means "to thatch over or cover a house," by 
which it is seen to belong to the same group of words - so far as our ideas are 
concerned - as our "tiler." From this use it came in time to signify generally any 
covering or clothing, and more especially fine clothing, as when we now say of a 
woman that she is "decked out in finery." Hence also the word "bedecked." The old 
Coverdale Bible of 1535 used the word in at least two instances: "She coloured her 
face, and decked her headed II Kings, ix, 30. "Thou deckest thyself with light as it were 
with a garment." Psalms, ciii, 2. 


This makes clear the meaning of the phrase about which you inquire. "The starry 
decked heaven" is the night sky covered, or clothed, with stars. It is real poetry, worthy 
of Shakespeare. 


* * * 


THE CEDARS OF THE FORESTS OF LEBANON 


Can you kindly furnish me with some information about the Cedars of Lebanon? I am 
studying the First degree. 


C.H.L., Wisconsin. 



After looking through a number of Masonic articles on this subject we discovered that 
the article in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 5, page 594, contains all such 
information as well as much beside: accordingly we are reprinting here that entire 
account: 


Cedras Libani, the far-famed Cedar of Lebanon, is a tree which, on account of its 
beauty, stateliness and strength, has always been a favourite with poets and painters, 
and which, in the figurative language of prophecy, is frequently employed in the 
Scriptures as a symbol of power, prosperity and longevity. It grows to a vertical 
height of from 50 to 80 ft. - "exalted above all trees of the field" - and at an elevation 
of about 6000 ft above sea-level. In the young tree, the bole Is straight and upright 
and one or two leading branches rise above the rest. As the tree increases in size, 
however, the upper branches become mingled together, and the tree is then clump- 
headed. Numerous lateral ramifying branches spread out from the main trunk in a 
horizontal direction, tier upon tier, covering a compass of ground the diameter of 
which is often greater than the height of the tree. William Gilpin, in his Forest 
Scenery, describes a cedar which, at an age of about 118 years, had attained to a 
height of 53 ft. and had a horizontal expanse of 96 ft. The branchlets of the cedar 
take the same direction as the branches, and the foliage is very dense. The tree, as 
with the rest of the fir-tribe, except the larch, is evergreen; new leaves are developed 
every spring, but their fall is gradual. In shape the leaves are straight, tapering, 
cylindrical and pointed; they are about 1 in. long wad of a dark green color, and grow 
in alternate tufts of about thirty in number. The male and female flowers grow on the 
same tree, but are separate. The cones, which are on the upper side of the branches, 
are flattened at the ends and are 4 to 5 in. in length and 2 in. wide; they take two years 
to come to perfection and while growing exude much resin. The scales are close 
pressed to one another and are reddish in color. The seeds are provided with a long 
membranous wing. The root of the tree is very strong and ramifying. The cedar 
flourishes best on sandy, loamy soils. It still grows on Lebanon, though for several 
centuries it was believed to be restricted to a small grove in the Kadisha valley at 
6000 ft. elevation, about 15 m. from Beyrout. The number of trees in this grove has 
been gradually diminishing, and as no young trees or seedlings occur, the grove will 
probably become extinct in course of time. Cedars are now known to occur in great 
numbers on Mt. Lebanon, chiefly on the western slopes, not forming a continuous 
forest but in groves, some of which contain several thousands of trees. There are also 
large forests on the higher slopes of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains. 

Lamartine tells us that the Arabs regard the trees as endowed with the principles of 
continual existence, and with reasoning and prescient powers, which enable them to 
prepare for the changes of the seasons. 



The wood of the cedar of Lebanon is fragrant, though not so strongly scented as that 
of the juniper or red-cedar of America. The wood is generally reddish-brown, light 
and of a coarse grain and spongy texture, easy to work, but liable to shrink and warp. 
Mountain-grown wood is harder, stronger, less liable to warp and more durable. 


The cedar of Lebanon is cultivated in Europe for ornament only. It can be grown in 
parks and gardens, and thrives well; but the young, plants are unable to bear great 
variations of temperature. The cedar is not mentioned in Evelyn's Silva (1664), but it 
must have been introduced shortly afterwards. The famous Enfield cedar was planted 
by Dr. Robert Uvedale (1642-1722), a noted schoolmaster and horticulturist, between 
1662-1670, and an old cedar at Bretby Park in Derbyshire is known to have been 
planted in 1676. Some very old cedars exist also at Syon House, Woburn Abbey, 
Warwick Castle and elsewhere, which presumably date from the 17th century. The 
first cedars in Scotland were planted at Hopetoun House in 1740; and the first one 
said to have been introduced into France was brought from England by Bernard de 
Jussieu in 1734, and placed in the Jardin des Plantes. Cedar-wood is earliest noticed 
in Leviticus xiv, 4, 6, where it is prescribed among the materials to be used for the 
cleansing of leprosy; but the wood there spoken of was probably that of the juniper. 
The term Eres (cedar) of Scripture does not apply strictly to one kind of plant, but was 
used indefinitely in ancient times, as is the word cedar at present. The term arz is 
applied by the Arabs to the cedar of Lebanon, to the common pine-tree, and to the 
juniper; and certainly the "cedars" for masts, mentioned in Ezek xxvii. 5, must have 
been pine-trees. It seems very probable that the fourscore thousand hewers employed 
by Solomon for cutting timber did not confine their operations simply to what would 
now be termed cedars and fir-trees. Dr. John Lindley considered that some of the 
cedar-trees sent by Hiram, king of Tyre, to Jerusalem might have been procured from 
Mount Atlas, and have been Callitris quadrivalvis, or arar-tree, the wood of which is 
hard and durable, and was much in request in former times for the building of 
temples. The timber-work of the roof of Cordova cathedral, built eleven centuries 
ago, is composed of it. In the time of Vitravius "cedars" were growing in Crete, 
Africa and Syria. Pliny says that their wood was everlasting, and therefore images of 
the gods were made of it; he makes mention also of the oil of cedar, or cedrium, 
distilled from the wood, and used by the ancients for preserving their books from 
moths and damp; papyri anointed or rubbed with cedrium were on this account called 
ced ati libri. Drawers of cedar or chips of the wood are now employed to protect furs 
and woollen stuffs from injury by moths. Cedar-wood, however, is said to be 
injurious to natural history objects, and to instruments placed in cabinets made of it, 



as the resinous matter of the wood becomes deposited upon them. Cedria, or cedar 
resin, is a substance similar to mastic, that flows from incisions in the tree; and cedar 
manna is a sweet exudation from its branches. 


* * * 


DUFFY'S "ORIGINAL THOUGHTS" 


Can you tell me anything about a book called "Original Thoughts," by Duffy? I 
imagine that it may be out of print now. L.D.S., South Carolina. 


"Original Thoughts" was written by Brother Frank M. Duffy and published in 1868. Of 
the author himself no memorials are at hand (unless perchance some reader of these 
pages may have a record filed away), save that he was a member of Union Lodge No. 
113, Xartsville, Tennessee. He must have been a man of noble character and fine mind, 
else his book misrepresents him, for it is one of the most beautiful essays on 
Freemasonry that ye scribe has ever read. It was composed in a day when Freemasonry 
was identified with Geometry, and Geometry itself was, after the ancient fashion of 
Plato, deemed a revelation of the Eternal mind: therefrom arose a blend of scientific 
speculation and religious mysticism very seldomly met with now. "Original Thoughts" 
does not call into question any of those views of Masonic history given currency by Dr. 
Oliver and his school and is to that extent out of date, but the spirit in which the little 
book was conceived will never fall from date unless it should turn out - which may 
God prevent - that men will cease to feel reverence, wonder, and worship in the depths 
of their nature. One of the few copies now known to exist is in the possession of 
Brother J. E. Gwin, Hartsville, Tennessee. 


* * * 


AN AUTHENTIC BOOK ON SOLOMON'S TEMPLE 



Can you tell me where I might purchase an authentic book on King Solomon's Temple, 
containing illustrations? C.T.R., Ohio. 


Among the well-nigh numberless books on the subject that might be mentioned two or 
three will doubtless serve your purposes: "Solomon's Temple: Its History and Its 
Structure," by the Rev. W. Shaw Caldecott. Preface by A. H. Sayce. The Union Press, 
1816 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. "The Tabernacle: Its History and Structure," by 
same author and publisher. "The Temple, Its Ministry and Services as they were at the 
Time of Jesus Christ," by Dr. Alfred Edersheim; Hodder and Stoughton, New York. 
Captain Jerome B. Frisbee, Lindsay, California, has published a book on the Temple 
very complete in diagrams and illustrations and unique in its interpretations. 


— o — 


CORRESPONDENCE 


A RECORD AS SECRETARY 


I saw in the March number of THE BUILDER (page 96) an account of Brother Arelius 
M. Willoughby who had served as Secretary of Vincennes Lodge No. 1 of Vincennes, 
Indiana, from 1876 to the present time excepting one year when he was elected Master, 
making 45 years of service as Secretary, which is a record hard to beat. 


Now I am somewhat of an antique secretary myself I was elected secretary of Roger 
Williams Lodge No 32, F. & A. M., of Centerdale, Rhode Island, March 4, 1876, and 
have served continuously to the present time June 10, 1922, and am still at it and am on 
my 47th year of continuous service, which is the record for Rhode Island. I 
congratulate Vincennes Lodge for having so interested and faithful a brother for their 



secretary and hope he may live many years to enjoy the honor and pleasures of a well 
spent life. Frank C. Angell, Rhode Island. 


* * * 


PERFECT CRAFTSMAN DEGREE 


In order to stimulate interest in its work as a degree team, the Fellowcraft Association 
connected with St. John's Lodge No. 3 A.F. & A.M. of Bridgeport, Connecticut, has 
perfected an initiatory form, which is used to initiate its new candidates into the 
Association, and teach them some of the duties connected with the privileges extended. 


After being organized for thirteen years, it was found by experience that the members 
of the Association, like the old saying "A new broom sweeps clean," came in the front 
door, so to speak, and after a few years work gradually passed out the back door, and 
new recruits took their places on the teams. 


In order to make the work more interesting and attractive, the idea of having a little 
side degree was hit upon, and as a novelty used to "razz" some of the popular members, 
worked successfully for a while. It hit the nail on the head because "all work and no 
play makes Jack a dull boy." Then the War came along, and many of the boys were 
called to service, and scattered to the furthermost parts of the earth. When they returned 
they still remembered the joys of the gatherings held before their departure, and the ball 
was started rolling for something bigger and better. Accordingly, a committee was 
appointed for the purpose of revising the ritual used. That committee did their work so 
well that the degree at once came to be known as the "Perfected Craftsman's Degree" 
from which the present name of "Perfect Craftsman Degree" came. 


The Perfect Craftsman Degree is based on Masonic history and traditions, and 
practically opposite in form from Blue Lodge work. The degree impresses on the mind 



of the candidate the importance of his Masonic ties and obligations, and presents them 
to him in a manner that makes an indellible impression upon his mind. The degree 
instructs and amuses at the same time. In order to be sure that there was nothing used in 
the work that would, in any way, conflict with Masonic Law and Practices the ritual 
was submitted to the present Grand Master of Masons in Connecticut, M.’.W.’. Frank 
L. Wilder, who referred the matter to a committee for examination and 
recommendation, the result being that the degree work was found to be all right and 
was endorsed as "harmless." 


The ritual uses a vocabulary of its own; a local Association is known as a quarry, a 
chair as a stone, etc. Since the new ritual was used for the first time last October (1921) 
nine new quarries have been organized, and four more are about to be started. The fact 
is that the movement, which has many aims along social development lines, has grown 
so rapidly that the original Degree Committee has had to reorganize into what is known 
as the "Activity Committee of Perfect Craftsman Quarries of Connecticut." The said 
committee is organized solely for the purpose of developing the social side of Masonry. 
Plans are being formulated for the arrangement of a schedule of fraternal visits for the 
balance of the present season, and the winter of 1922-23, and for a monster Field Day 
for all Blue Lodge Masons residing within the State of Connecticut, to be held at some 
central point durmg the summer at which time a gathering, which will be a credit to the 
Masonic institution, will be held. 


The movement started is one of great importance to the Fraternity. It means that the 
young blood in the Order is beginning to circulate, and it spells life and action for the 
future. The motto of the movement is "Service, Sociability, and Cooperation": service 
to the Master of the Blue Lodge that the Quarry is organized to serve, sociability 
among the various quarries, and thereby closer cooperative work on subjects vital to 
the welfare and advancement of our art. 


The Master of the Blue Lodge that the individual quarries are organized in, is the head 
of the quarry, and is known as the "Master of Light." At a recent meeting of the Perfect 
Craftsmen held in Fair Haven, the lodge room was overcrowded, and the spirit that 
prevailed among the members was wonderful. During the proper part of the meeting, 
all of the Masters present spoke in favor of the movement; all testified to the great 



amount of good it had done their work already by the true service and stimulating 
interest it has brought about without any advertising effort or cost. 


Brother Howard W. Gorham, 36 Harmony Street, Bridgeport, Conn., is acting as the 
Chairman of the Activity Committee referred to, and stands ready to give any "Service 
to Masonry" information requested in regard to the movement, on behalf of the quarries 
in Connecticut, to sister jurisdictions. 


Good buttons of special design have been made up and serve to identify the workers on 
the various teams in the Blue Lodge. 


The advantages of a local quarry are numerous. The degree work gives the incoming 
master of the Blue Lodge an opportunity to select men of talent and service when 
making his appointments to the various stations of trust and work. 


It is said that in every lodge where a Quarry has been established there is a revival of 
interest and a great outpouring of members to the meetings, and all activities of the 
Blue Lodge. It is the inexorable law of the Craft to press forward and never turn back 
until their work is completed - "Service to Masonry" is the slogan. Ray V. Denslow, 
Missouri. 


* * * 


MORE INFORMATION ABOUT GENERAL ARTHUR SAINT CLAIR 


I was very much pleased with Admiral Baird's article on General Saint Clair in the July 
"THE BUILDER," as I always am with anything he writes. 



There is one feature he overlooked and which I trust he will pardon me for mentioning 
as it is a matter which should never be forgotten when speaking of General Arthur 
Saint Clair. That is, he was a member of the well-known Saint Clair or Sinclair family 
whose head, William Sinclair of Roslyn, was the hereditary Grand Master when the 
Grand Lodge of Scotland was formed. In this Sinclair family the Grand Mastership had 
been handed down for over 200 years, according to the Scottish traditions. The 
Encyclopedia Brittannica tells of Thurso castle, near the town of Thurso, which is 367 
miles north of Edinburgh and which town is noted for its stone quarries to this day. 


General Arthur Saint Clair was bom at Thurso castle in 1734 and hence was only two 
years younger than Washington. The Grand Lodge of Scotland was formed in 1736, 
two years after his birth, and the head of the elder branch was still the Grand Master 
when he was bom. He came to America in 1758 as an ensign in the Royal American 
regiment, known as the 60th foot, of which Colonel John Young, who had been for 
thirty years the Deputy Grand Master of Scotland, was the colonel. The man who 
succeeded Colonel Young was Colonel Augustine Prevost who was created a Grand 
Inspector-General of the Scottish Rite by Stephen Morin in 1762, the same year in 
which Arthur Saint Clair resigned his commission in the British army, married in 
Boston, and became an American. There is no doubt but that he was a Master Mason at 
that time, as there was a military lodge in his regiment of which Colonel Young was 
the Master while Arthur Saint Clair was an officer. 


He settled in the Ligonier Valley in Pennsylvania, near Bedford, and lived there for 
twelve years. When the Revolutionary War broke out he joined forces with the 
colonists to whom his military knowledge was of value, he being created a colonel of 
militia in 1775. His being a Scottish Mason, or Mason of the Scottish Rite, brought him 
in close connection with Washington whose lodge at Fredericksburg was also a 
Scottish lodge with a charter from the Grand Lodge of Scotland as were the majority of 
the lodges in America which favored the cause of the patriots. Such were the famous 
St. Andrews' lodge of Boston, and the Provincial Grand Lodge of which Dr. Joseph 
Warren was the Grand Master which organized lodges in all the New England colonies 
and likewise in Virginia, North Carolina and others of the colonies. 



The members of the English lodges chartered under the Grand Lodge of England were 
Tories, almost to a man, while the Scotch lodges were nearly all revolutionists. I called 
the attention of readers of THE BUILDER to the fact that we American Masons owe 
but little to English Masonry, as most of the Revolutionary Fathers were Scottish 
Masons and took their degrees in lodges which were chartered by the Grand Lodge of 
Scotland. For these reasons, it is well to bring out the connection of General Arthur 
Saint Clair with the Sinclairs of Rosslyn. 


I was much interested in the account of the visit in Scotland of Grand Commander 
Cowles of the Scottish Rite which was published in the July number of the "New Age." 
Brother Cowles has been the Grand Master of Kentucky and in his article he called 
attention to the similarity of the Scotch work with that of Kentucky while the English 
work was much different. We owe our Masonry in America to Scotland, our work is 
Scottish and not English, and this is as it should be. California work comes from a 
Scotch lodge of Connecticut under P.G.M. Warren, Provincial Grand Master under 
Scotland. Cyrus Field Willard, California. 


* * * 


A SKETCH OF GILES FONDA YATES 


Interested by an item concerning Giles Fonda Yates that appeared in THE BUILDER, 
April, 1922, page 125, brethren of the Valley of Schenecteday, New York, sent to us a 
copy of their beautifully printed "Memorial of the Presentation of Charters" which 
contained a condensed biographical account of Yates, all of which, as containing 
valuable data concerning one of the most illustrious of Masonic careers, is here 
republished: 


GILES FONDA YATES, AND THE DELTA LODGE OF PERFECTION, NO. 1, 
OF THE CITY OF SCHENECTADY 



Condensed from an article by Isaac H. Vrooman, Jr., 32d, printed in the Proceedings 
Council of Deliberation, State of New York, A.A.S.R., 1914, to whom due 
acknowledgment is made. 


Giles Fonda Yates was born in Schenectady, November 8, 1798, the son of John and 
Margaret (Fonda) Yates. His great- great-grandfather, Joseph Yates, emigrated from 
England and settled in Albany, in 1664, and his great-grandfather, Robert Yates, came 
to Schenectady in 171 1. He was graduated from Union College in the Class of 1816, 
with Phi Beta Kappa rank, and later received the degree of Master of Arts. He was by 
profession a counsellor-at-law and held the office of Surrogate of Schenectady County 
from 1821 to 1840. For many years he edited the Schenectady Democrat and Reflector, 
and contributed to that paper an extensive and interesting series of articles on the early 
history of Schenectady, which have formed the basis of most of the published history 
of that city. 


He was initiated an Entered Apprentice in Morton Lodge, No. 87, of Schenectady, on 
October 23, 1820, and received the degrees of Fellow Craft and Master Mason on 
October 27, 1820. On December 15, 1820, he was elected Senior Deacon of Morton 
Lodge and the following year Senior Warden; to which office he was reselected in 
1822, but was not advanced in 1823. On December 7, 1824, he affiliated with St. 
George's Lodge, No. 6, but did not sign the by-laws until June 24, 1825. W.’.Bro.’. 
Yates served as Master of St. George's Lodgre in 1826 and 1827, and again in 1844 and 
1845, and was one of the survivors of the Morgan trouble who helped to keep Masonry 
alive in Schenectady. He was also a Royal Arch Mason and Knight Templar. 


It is not known when he received the Scottish Rite degrees but it must have been during 
1821, for in the minutes of Ineffable Lodge of Perfection, Albany, under date of 
January 31, 1822, he is recorded as Senior Grand Warden. For many years lll.’.Bro.’. 
Yates was connected with the affairs of Ineffable Lodge of Perfection of Albany. 


In the fall of 1 820, with the consent of its surviving members, the Lodge of Perfection, 
which had become dormant, was re-established under the appellation of Delta Lodge of 
Perfection, and placed under the jurisdiction of a Grand Council of Princes of 



Jerusalem, which had been opened previously in the City of Schenectady. The minutes 
of Delta Lodge of Perfection, Schenectady, are to be found copied in the Minute Book 
of Ineffable Lodge, commencing October 5, 1821, and preceded by the stubs of two 
leaves which have been removed. These stubs bear evidence of meetings having been 
held in 1820. 


Delta Lodge of Perfection continued to meet at Schenectady until 1825, when it was, 
by the consent of its members, removed to Albany. lll.’.Bro.’. Yates was Grand Master 
of Delta Lodge during the five years of its existence at Schenectady. 


The only printed reference to Delta Lodge of Perfection is found in the Proceedings of 
the Grand Chapter, R.A.M., of New York, under date of October 8, 1823, at an 
"Emergency Convocation," called for the purpose of celebrating the passage of the 
"first boat from the Grand Erie Canal into the Hudson River at Albany." "Delta Grand 
Lodge of Perfection, No. 1, of the City of Schenectady," attended and joined in the 
procession. 


lll.’.Bro.’. Yates received the 33d on October 24, 1825, from lll.’.Bro.’. John Barker, 
special Deputy of the Supreme Council of Charleston, S. C. 


In 1828, when the two Grand Councils, Northern and Southern, agreed to a division of 
territory, Brother Yates was, on July 6 of that year, "acknowledged and admitted" a 
member of the Northern Supreme Council and Representative near it of the Southern 
Supreme Council. Brother Yates' Patent of July 5, 1828, is in possession of St. George's 
Lodge. 


He was appointed M.’. 111. ’.Ins.’. Lieut.’. Gr.’. Com.’, on June 15, 1844, andM.’. 
P.’.Sov.’. Grand Commander August 25, 1851, which office he at once resigned in 
favor of 111.’. Edward A. Raymond. The latter, appreciating Brother Yates' great 
services to the Supreme Council, appointed him 111.’. Grand Chancellor H.’.E.’. which 
office, together with Deputy of New York, he retained until his death. 



The latter years of his life were spent in New York City, where he took an active 
interest in the local bodies of the Rite, and was appointed the first "Sovereign of 
Sovereigns" of Cosmopolitan Consistory of New York City, at its organization in 1856. 


He died December 13, 1859, in New York and his remains were brought to 
Schenectady for burial. He was buried in the "Old Dutch Burial Ground" between 
Green and Front Streets, and when, in 1879, the plot was sold by the Dutch Reformed 
Church, his remains were removed to Vale Cemetery, where they now rest in what is 
known as the Union College plot. Brother Yates was never married. 


He was the author of a work entitled History of the Manners and Ceremonies of the 
Indian Tribes. He was also engaged, for twenty years, in the compilation of a valuable 
Repertorium of Masonry, which was left unfinished at the time of his death, and which, 
according to his family, was stolen from his lodgings in New York after his death. But 
most of his Masonic writings appeared in contemporary journals. Moore's Freemasons 
Magazine and Mackey's Masonic Quarterly Review contain valuable communications 
from his pen on subjects of Masonic archaeology, in which science he has no superior. 
Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry contains many articles by him, especially on 
the higher degrees. He was also a poet of no mean pretension, and an artist. 


His character is best summed up in his own words. "I would fain have you believe, my 
dear brethren," said he, "that, as a member of the Masonic Institution, if I have had any 
ambition, it has been to study its science, and to discharge my duties as a faithful 
Mason, rather than to obtain its official honors or personal benefits of any kind. Self- 
aggrandizement has never formed any part of my Masonic creed, and all who know me 
can bear witness that it never has of my practice." 


* * * 


DIFFERENCES AMONG SCOTTISH RITE SYSTEMS 



A Masonic friend of mine who has been in Japan for some time told me of a case of 
certain Jewish members of the lodge under the English Constitutions, in Kobe, who 
were desirous of taking the Royal Arch, but it appears that a rule exists that no brother 
can take this degree until he has been a Master Mason for a certain number of months. 
These brethren proceeded to some place or other in the East where American lodges 
and chapters were established and took, not only the Royal Arch but other degrees in 
the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite coming back bestarred and bejewelled, with 
any amount of degrees including, of course, the eighteenth, or Rose Croix. These, my 
friend told me, cost in the neighborhood of $500 and were conferred one after another 
in a few days. What I thought you might help me in is this: How on earth can a brother 
other than a professing Christian possibly take the Rose Croix or eighteenth degree? 
Does the American system differ in any way from the English and Scottish? I am a 
member of the Alpha Chapter under the English Supreme Council (eighteenth degree 
Rose Croix), and it seems to me that any one unable to subscribe to the essential 
Christian doctrines could not possibly take the degree without turning it into a 
blasphemous farce. Can you give me any information on this head? 


William Moister, Editor Masonic Journal of South Africa. 


The Scottish Rite degrees as practiced in England, Scotland, Ireland, and South Africa 
are very different from the same degrees as practiced here; and in no degree is the 
difference more marked than in the Rose Croix. With you, Brother Moister, it is 
Christian and confesses Christ as Son of God and Lord of Glory: here it is interpreted 
so as to be available to Jews, Free Thinkers, etc. The Jews referred to in your letter 
were not at all hypocritical. It is hardly probable that they paid five hundred dollars for 
initiation. Can any reader inform us if such high fees have ever been charged? 


— o — 


YE EDITOR'S CORNER 



Help! help! Such a flood of contributions has been pouring in this past year that ye 
poor editor is swamped - or should one say drowned? This means that many 
manuscripts wait a long time before seeing the light of day. Several brethren have 
kindly consented to having their articles passed on to other Masonic periodicals. 


* * * 


Brother Arthur C. Parker, who has written for THE BUILDER some interesting items 
on Indian Masonry, and four important manuscripts not yet published, has written a 
book on "The Archeological History of New York." It is an important work. 


* * * 


Ye editor will begin a new series of Study Club articles next March on "Chapters of 
Masonic History." He is attempting to write an authentic history of Masonry in 
understandable language. Many erudite brethren, here and abroad, have been lending 
him their counsels. 


* * * 


Ye editor and his associates have formed a conspiracy to make the January BUILDER 
the best number yet published. It will be the ninety-seventh issue. We are growing old! 



We are available for a few lectures - very few. For information address The Editor, 
THE BUILDER, 2920 First Avenue East. Cedar Ranids. Iowa.