POLITICAL NOTES: Masonry

Nearly every President of the U. S. (Calvin Coolidge is an exception) has been a Mason of high degree. President Harding was to have been “crowned ” honorary member of the Supreme Council, Thirty-third Degree, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, at the Council’s 111th annual meeting in Manhattan last week. He was looking forward “with most agreeable anticipation to being present at the meeting and receiving the crowning degree of Masonry.”

The name of General Leonard Wood was also on the docket for this honor. The exigencies of Philippine governance prevented his attendance. The Supreme Council thereupon altered its constitution so that it is now possible to confer the degree on officers of the Army or Navy on active service in whatever jurisdiction they may be stationed.

The advisability of political figures enjoying Masonic affiliations is apparent, although they need not expect “direct action” or intervention in political or educational affairs. This time-honored Masonic principle was reiterated by the Supreme Council in response to numerous appeals to the Sovereign Grand Commander for an official ruling. Still, there are over two and a half million Masons in the U. S.

Masonry had its origin in the crafts guilds. The Freemasonry of 17th Century England, entered the U. S. with the foundation of the Boston Grand Lodge in 1733. Benjamin Franklin was an early and ardent promoter of the craft. Likewise George Washington. There are now 49 Grand Lodges in the U. S. with Temples in most state capitals.

Where early Masonry had as its basis the study of architecture and the building arts, modern Masonic teachings embrace all departments of knowledge, reinforced and decked out with a glamorous, heterogeneous heritage more or less accurately attributed to the Order’s earliest days. Conservative theorists date this heritage from the dawn of English industry. More romantic Masons claim Solomon for the first Grand Master, and even Euclid.

Degrees are studied for and taken optionally in sequence, depending on a favorable ballot of those already accepted. As progress is made up-wards, the number accepted decreases rapidly. The four chief classes of degrees: “Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch,” ” Mark Grand Lodge,” “Great Priory of Knights Templars,” “Ancient and Accepted Rite.” These are mutually complementary.

The Thirty-third degree occurs under the last-named class and is conferred only upon Master Masons of the Thirty-second degree in good standing. Deliberations of the Supreme Council determine the eligibility of candidates on the basis of their excellence as officers of subordinate divisions of the Scottish Rite “or other eminent service.” Distinction is made between active and honorary members.

Membership in the Masonic Order costs, in most jurisdictions, at least $20. Masonic charities, especially hospitals, are everywhere maintained.

Governor Walton of Oklahoma, who recently declared martial law throughout the state and “absolute martial law” in several cities, found himself facing a difficult situation. He set out to fight the Ku Klux Klan, which he declared was responsible for 2,500 floggings in the state in twelve months.

His soldiers appeared, and the Ku Klux Klan, as such, disappeared. A court of inquiry is evidently seeking out the Kluxers. But large sections of the press and Oklahoma’s legislators rose up to fight the Governor. Though a military censorship was placed on several newspapers, the legislators were not so easily controlled. They began moves to assemble the Legislature in order to impeach the Governor for usurpation of authority. Governor Walton threatened to jail them if they met.

It was said that if the Legislature succeeded in meeting it would have a sufficient K. K. K. majority to impeach Mr. Walton. He was in a ticklish position for all his six-foot, well-built frame. Oklahoma vibrated with the war drum.

Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi, who views most things with alarm, issued from the White House. “The President,” he asseverated, “is in fine fettle and he is a fine fellow. We just talked about things in general!”

“Woodrow Wilson is one of the greatest men the world has ever produced. He was a great President. . . . His high place in history is secure and the adulation and mouthings of weaklings and demagogues can add nothing to or detract nothing from it.”—Senator John Knight Shields of Tennessee, who (with only two other Democrats †) voted against the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty in the Senate.

“Judas kissed Christ before he betrayed Him. Shields praises Wilson after Shields’ betrayal of the greatest man of our time.”—General Lawrence D. Tyson of Knoxville, one of three Democrats who are preparing to contest Mr. Shields’ renomination in 1924.

In a letter to W. A. S. Furlow of Bristol, Tenn., Woodrow Wilson himself added: “I do not feel at liberty to say more than this: That I regarded Mr. Shields during my administration as one of the least trustworthy of my professed supporters.”

The Harding Memorial Committee of San Francisco announced that, as a memorial to the late President, there will be built at a cost of $100,000 a new municipal golf course and club house.

Republican officeholders are none too popular in the Democratic South. From West Point, Va., came the report that a Republican appointed as Postmaster there was the recipient of undesirable attention from his customers. They bought large quantities of special delivery stamps and flooded the office with letters which the postmaster had to spend most of the night delivering.

William E. Borah quit Idaho where he has been speech-making and handshaking, mounted a train for Washington. Before he left he telegraphed orders to “have Jester* brought back to the stables.”

Mr. William E. Borah dined with Mr. Coolidge at the White House. There was no reason why he should not. But political quidnunes whispered that the very independent Senator from Idaho is not averse to a little free transportation on the conservative Administration band wagon.

The Round Table, universally respected British Quarterly, exclaimed of the United States in its September number:

“What does it all mean—this story of a revolt in the Middle West; panic among politicians; Henry Ford in the public eye; Congress in a state of chaos? And those other things which have not been mentioned: the Stock Exchange treading as cautiously as a cat; industry seeing shadows on the wall at every turn; the Protestant churches in a fine fury over the appearance of theological doctrines which are already antiquated abroad; skirmishes off the New Jersey coast with rum-running ships; 25 persons killed in motor accidents on a single Sunday; a lynching in Missouri attended by high school girls; the Ku Klux Klan moving unchecked over the face of the country. . . . And, in the State of Minnesota, one lone man saying: ‘I got a pretty good farm; and I got good size mortgage on it; and I got a wife and children. . . . ‘ Is it Magnus Johnson’s doctrine that sounds so radical, or is it his terrible simplicity?

“It means this: that the labor of consolidating the United States into a nation is far from finished. . . .”

†Reed of Missouri and Walsh of Massachusetts.

*Jester is Mr. Borah’s eight-year-old, three-fourths thoroughbred sorrel horse. Jester has a blazed face and two white feet. All Summer he has been in pasture. Mr. Borah rides in Rock Creek Park before most Washingtonians have breakfasted.