AS OTHERS SEE US
W Bro. Harry Carr, Past Junior Grand Deacon of the United Grand Lodge of
England, is perhaps best known to American Masonry as the former Secretary of
Quator Coronati Lodge No 2076, and as Editor of the Transactions. He is also
known throughout the Masonic World as an outstanding Masonic author, speaker,
and as a prestigious Prestonian lecturer We are deeply indebted to Wor Bro. Carr
for permitting us to use this portion of one of his presentation. "Freemasonry
in the U S." as a short Talk Bulletin. It is interesting to see ourselves as
others see us.
America -fifty States and forty-nine separate Sovereign Grand Lodges!
On my first visit, in 1960, I travelled to New York, Boston, and Washington;
then right across country to San Francisco, Fresno and Los Angeles. It was a
seven-week Masonic tour and holiday combined, and I gave my Prestonian Lecture
to enormous gatherings of Masons in all those cities, covering more than 7,000
miles within the American continent. When I returned to London, the D.C. of my
Mother Lodge said, "Harry, you must tell us all about it after dinner; and we
can give you ten minutes." Brethren, it cannot be done in ten minutes, but if
you will stay with me a little longer, I shall try to keep you interested.
My principal equipment for the tour consisted of an insatiable curiosity,
and a sufficient knowledge of English Masonic practices to enable me to ask
the right sort of questions, so that I could make a reasonable assessment of our
differences. I met and spoke to literally hundreds of Masons from Entered
Apprentices to Grand Librarians, Grand Secretaries and Grand Masters. I saw many
things that pleased me enormously, many that horrified me; and I never stopped
asking questions!
(Grand Masters are amazingly plentiful in U.S.A., because most of them are
elected for only one year. Sad, because a good man will only rarely see the
fruits of his efforts!)
As a lecturer, it is probable that I was meeting the best types of American
Masons, men with a real love for the Craft and a serious interest in its
background. I can never forget that in Los Angeles I addressed a large gathering
of Masons in a huge Masonic centre that they had built with their own hands,
working voluntarily in their spare time under a hired architect and with a
practical team of builders who ensured that the work was well and truly done;
and I was proud to be associated with brethren of this calibre.
But of course the following impressions do not pretend to be a complete
survey, nor can they possibly be true of the whole Craft in the U.S.A. I have
simply tried to describe something of what I saw, emphasizing our differences in
practice, with a critical eye for what seems strange to us, and with
wholehearted praise where praise is due. American Masons are warm, friendly
folk, good hosts, good company, and eager to be helpful; and if my words appear
to accentuate certain peculiarities, I must plead that they were written without
malicious intent, knowing full well that our brethren overseas can find much in
our own system and practices that calls for criticism.
THE BACKGROUND
The first thing that is obvious to every English Mason who visits the U.S.A.,
is that their Freemasonry is unlike ours. In the first place, Masonry is not for
father alone, but for the whole family. For father, there are the usual three
"Blue" degrees, and then all the rest running right up to the 32ø. (the 33ø is
by selection and invitation; in fact, and hournor, rather than a degree.) For
mother, there is the Order of the Eastern Star, the Order of Amaranth, and
several others, less well known.
For boys, aged from 14 to 21, there is the Order of DeMolay, named after
Jacques DeMolay, the last Grand Master of the medieval Knights Templar. For
girls, aged 13 to 20, there is an Order called Rainbow and another called Job's
Daughters; and all these are, in a very special and peculiar sense, Masonic.
This must be explained and I shall do so in a moment.
I have called these Orders Masonic, and it is difficult for us in England to
appreciate the point. Perhaps the following illustration may help. In A.Q.C.,
Vol. 75, p. 119, we recently reviewed the sesqui-centennial History of the Grand
Lodge of Louisiana, a regular and recognized Grand Lodge which is in amicable
fraternal relationship with our own Grand Lodge of England. Chapter 20 in this
History is entitled "Bodies Identified with Masonry in Louisiana," (my italics)
and among those listed are:
The Order of the Eastern Star The Order of the Rainbow, for Girls The Order
of DeMolay
In Eastern Star, and the majority of the others, a genuine Masonic
relationship is an essential pre-requisite for joining, so that for Eastern
Star, the lady candidate must be mother or wife, sister or daughter of a
Freemason in good standing. (For Rainbow and DeMolay, relationship is
preferable, but not essential.) There is no suggestion that these Orders are
quasi-Masonic or that they attempt to copy Freemasonry. It is best to regard
them as adjuncts to Freemasonry; and in the U.S.A., they are so regarded: the
youth organizations as training-grounds for the future, while the women's Orders
count it a duty and a privilege to serve Freemasonry in every possible way. All
this appears very strange to us in England, and although it may seem wrong for a
Grand Officer to say so, I like it and I believe that it works and it has
obvious advantages. In the first place, father knows where mother is on her
night out, and vice versa; and both are able to take an interest in the
children's organizations. Whether all these efforts have any marked effect on
juvenile delinquency rates in the U.S.A., would be very hard to say, but I am
firmly convinced that this "family approach" to the Craft can do nothing but
good.
A nice example of this family spirit occurred in Massachusetts where I
lectured to an assembly of some five-hundred brethren, and over
four-hundred-and-sixty of us sat down to dinner afterwards. It was in an
enormous hall, with a stage at one end, on which the Lodge Organist was playing
light music throughout the dinner. The tables were arranged in sprigs (as in
England), and everyone except the Officers were dressed in the utmost
informality. But all the Officers were in meticulous dinner dress and throughout
the evening we were served by waitresses immaculately dressed in white from head
to foot. It was a pleasant, unpretentious meal, and all was going splendidly
when suddenly the S.W., far away in the right-hand corner of the room, stood up
and began to dance with one of the waitresses along the gangway between the
sprigs! I was sitting at the right of the Master, and I leaned over to him and
whispered, "Worshipful Master, I thought I had seen almost everything in the
Craft, but this I have never seen. Does it happen very often?" He turned to me
with a smile and said, "I hope it does: the lady he is dancing with is his wife.
Tonight we are being waited on by our wives, Eastern Star." And there were 460
at dinner! (I was unable to find out if the husbands help with the "washing-up,"
but probably they do not, because kitchens are highly mechanized in the U.S.A.).
With this kind of background, the objectives in the Craft tend to take on a
rather different aspect from ours. Generally, they do not go in strongly for the
maintenance of large Masonic Institutions, as we do. There are, indeed, many
splendid institutions, but the emphasis is mainly on the social side: parties,
outings and celebrations of one kind or another. A great deal is done by way of
homes and equipment for crippled children. Masonic 'blood banks' are a big
feature, the blood being for ultimate use by Masons and non-Masons alike. There
are some Masonic hospitals, and a number of homes for 'senior citizens'; but
nobody grows old in the U.S.A. If they are lucky enough to live that long, they
become 'senior citizens,' and in those jurisdictions that aspire to the
maintenance of institutions, it is usually the 'senior citizens' who get first
care.
Finally, I must not omit from this description of the background of the Craft
the very obvious fact that almost everyone wears a badge, usually a
'lapel-badge', with all sorts of Masonic symbols ranging up to the 33ø and the
so-called "High Degrees' predominating. All this might seem to be a piece of
pardonable male vanity and in the vast majority of cases it is nothing more. But
the badges tend to become a temptation, and the Masonic visitor to the U.S.A.
will not need to look far before he realizes that they are all too often used
for business.
Of all the things likely to shock an Englishman, this, I think, must be the
most distasteful; and though I am sure that many Brethren in the U.S.A. find
these practices as objectionable as we do, one has the impression that they have
grown accustomed to them, and that is a great pity. I have heard the situation
stated in a somewhat different form. One of my American friends told me, "I wear
the badge, to show that I'm proud of my Masonry. As long as I wear it, I'd never
do anything to disgrace it; in fact, when I do business with a man whom I
recognize to be a Brother, I always try to give him a bigger order than I would
otherwise." All this is true, I am sure, but where is there a commercial
traveller among my friend's suppliers who could resist wearing a badge under
such conditions?
During a more recent visit to the U.S.A., at an informal Masonic party in
Providence, Rhode Island, I teased my hosts about this custom of wearing Masonic
badges for the wrong reasons, and when I had finished talking, one of the
Brethren said, "It is all very well for you to talk about our using Masonry for
business, but it is not always like that. Quite often, we have to try to take an
order from a Roman Catholic, and then the badge is a liability--not an asset, "
I had to agree with him, but privately, Brethren, I'm convinced that it is much
easier to remove the badge than to change your customer's religion!
LODGE MEMBERSHIP
Judging by our standards in England, where average membership is around 80
per Lodge, American lodge memberships are extraordinarily high. Consider, as
an example, Washington, D.C., the capital and the centre of government; it is
virtually a city without industry. It has about 50 lodges in all, four of them
with memberships of 1,100, 1,200, 1,400, and 1,500 respectively! And these
enormous memberships are to be found in all the large cities in the U.S.A. It
is, of course, impossible to strike "average figures" as between lodges in the
small villages and those in the large towns, because they would be misleading.
But in any of the cities, one might expect the general run of lodges to range
from 400 to 800 members, with several others running into four figures.
At the time of my visit to the U.S.A., I was already Secretary of two lodges
and I was naturally puzzled as to the reasons for these (to us) fantastic
numbers. There appear to be several reasons, and I dare not commit myself as to
their order of importance. The first two reasons are almost national
characteristics: (a) The Americans are great "joiners," they like to be in on
everything. (b) They admire big numbers and mass production. (c) Most U.S.A.
jurisdictions have curious regulations relating to what they call single, dual
or plural membership. Some Grand Lodges allow only single membership, i.e., a
Brother may belong to only one Craft Lodge and no more. Others allow dual
membership, usually permitting their members to belong to one Lodge inside the
State and one outside. Only very few Grand Lodges permit their members the same
privileges as we enjoy here, of plural membership, i.e., of joining as many
Lodges as we please. It seems possible that, in some indirect way, these
regulations have the effect of channelling vast numbers of Masons into a
comparatively small number of Lodges, and that leads to large memberships.
I realize that this may be faulty reasoning, but there is no doubt as to the
facts, i.e., that in many jurisdictions, if Lodge memberships are to be kept
reasonably low, there are simply not enough Lodges to take the vast numbers of
men who want to join. The reasons are purely economic .
(d) Maintenance costs arc very high for Lodges and lodge buildings in the
U.S.A., and this leads to some curious results. In some cities, when a new Lodge
is to be founded, it is not uncommon to find that the existing Lodges raise
objections, because they regard all future Masons in their territory as their
own "reserve pool," which will help swell their own membership in due course,
and thus help them with their maintenance charges and their balance-sheets. In
effect, the Masons themselves are opposing the formation of new lodges. (Sec the
note 011 this subject in "Whither Are We Traveling?", by M.W. Bro. Dwight L.
Smith, P.G.M. and Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Indiana.)
But is it possible that there is still another reason for the large numbers?
I found that in many jurisdictions it is customary for the Secretary to receive
1 1/2 dollars annually per head for every member! (As a former Secretary of the
Q. C. Lodge, with over 12,000 members, I must say that this idea appeals to me
enormously!) In certain jurisdictions the Lodge Secretaries receive a fixed
honorarium, instead. I do not for one moment suggest that Secretaries are
tempted to tout for members; I merely record the differences in our respective
practices.
Of course I was anxious to know how the American Lodges achieve these
memberships, and the opportunity came when I visited the Grand Secretary's
office in Boston, Mass. Among many interesting papers that were given to me was
their Year Book, containing all the statistics for the preceding year, and
thumbing through the pages casually, I came to the section which summarized
their Annual Returns. There were many pages of figures but, at the very end of
the list, there were the details for the very last Lodge that was consecrated
just before the book was printed, and at the time of this Return the Lodge was
only eleven months old. At that age, (eleven months), this infant Lodge had a
membership of 174; during the eleven months it had initiated 54 Brethren, it had
passed 49, and raised 45 brethren. Mass production in a really big way!
The Lodges usually meet once a month (for ten or eleven months in the year)
for their "stated" or regular meetings, and every week, or fortnight, for
"emergent," "special" or "work" meetings. Attendances, I am told, are
proportionately low. In a Lodge of 1,000 members, an attendance of 100 at a
'Stated' meeting would be counted good. There might be only 20 or 30 at the
"work" meetings, and these "work" meetings are, in effect, the factories where
Masons are turned out by mass production. This may sound cynical, but I believe
it is a fair statement of the situation that exists in the larger Masonic
centres in the U.S.A.
Arising from all this, perhaps the most frequent question I have been asked
in England is "With memberships of 800 to 1,500, how can a Mason ever become
Master of a Lodge? Surely he could never live long enough." The answer is that
it is easy. All he needs to do, is to express a desire to "go on," or to "get in
line" as the Americans say, and the path is wide open for him. It is the great
tragedy of Craft Masonry in the U.S.A. that vast numbers of those who join
simply use the Craft as a springboard to the 32ø. To be Master of a "Blue" Lodge
may be very pleasant, but it is not nearly so important as to become a 32ø Mason
and a "Shriner," with all its attendant advantages (mainly social). As a result
men become Freemasons for the wrong reasons, and the Craft is neglected in
favour of side degrees.
Among the Grand Officers who see and deplore what is happening, this is a
source of constant anxiety, frequently expressed in forthright statements. It is
a disease the presence of which is known and understood, but the remedy,
unfortunately, is still to be found. Talk to any American Mason for five
minutes, and the chances are that he will show you his wallet containing a whole
"concertinafull" of Dues Cards, witnessing the number of "Masonic" organizations
to which he belongs. There will seldom be more than one (or two) Craft Lodges
among them; the rest are all side degrees, that are helping, unintentionally to
sap the Craft of its vitality!
CRAFT RITUAL
There are several different Craft rituals in use in the U.S.A., generally
exhibiting only minor variations and, broadly speaking, they are very similar to
ours in England. Yet, in a very curious way, the visitor who knows his ritual
will find that the American versions sound strangely old-fashioned, repetitive,
and somehow older than ours. Surprisingly, this is true; although the Americans
got their ritual from Britain, their ritual is, in fact, older than ours, and
that makes an interesting story.
As you probably know, our present ritual was virtually standardized at the
time of the union of the rival Grand Lodges, in 1813,, when the 'Antients' and
the 'Moderns' ultimately came together to form the United Grand Lodge. For
several years before that date, committees of learned Brethren had been sitting,
trying to evolve a revised form of the ritual that would be acceptable to both
sides.
The results of their labours, very satisfying to us nowadays, did not meet
with wholehearted approval at that time. Many changes had been made and a great
deal of symbolical material had been discarded. Indeed, it might almost be fair
to say that in cleaning up the ritual, the baby had been thrown away with the
bath-water .
American Masonic workings owe their origins, unquestionably, to England,
Scotland, Ireland, but the stabilization of their ritual was done by an
American, Thomas Smith Webb, who, although he wrote very little of it himself,
may well be described as the father of American ritual.
In 1792, Webb, a printer by trade, settled in Albany, N.Y., and soon
afterwards he made the acquaintance of John Hanmer, an English Freemason who was
a keen ritualist and apparently very knowledgeable about the Preston system.
Webb, was then barely twenty-two years old and their mutual interests drew them
together. This was the period when the English Masonic ritual was at its highest
stage of development. Hutchinson and Calcott had published their works; Preston
was in his prime, and the 1792 edition of his Illustrations of Masonry had just
appeared. This was the 8th edition, as popular and successful as its
predecessors, and it was almost a bible to the English Craft. Webb took the
book, retained sixty-four pages of Preston's work intact, word for word, cut out
a few minor items, and rearranged others, and published it in 1797, under the
title Freemasons' Monitor or Illustrations of Freemasonry.Within twenty years,
the ritual in England had been altered, curtailed and polished up, (some said,
almost beyond recognition), but not so in the U.S.A.; they preserved it.
Look at some of our oldest Tracing Boards and you will find pictures of the
Scythe, Hour-glass, Beehive, Anchor, etc., which once had their proper places as
symbolic portions of our ritual. They have disappeared from our tracing Boards
and from the ritual; but in America, they are still in use to this day, depicted
on the Boards and explained in their 'Monitors.' And so it is fair to say that
their ritual, though it came from us, is actually older than ours, and it is not
merely 'old-fashioned,' but also more discursive, and by reason of their
Lectures much more explanatory than ours, especially of the symbolical meaning
of their procedures.
But apart from the things we have lost, their ritual material is essentially
the same as ours, and easily recognizable. Their signs and secrets are virtually
the same as ours, except that they use the Scottish sign for the Entered
Apprentices. Their second degree is more elaborate than ours. Their third is
basically the same as ours, but because they perform the drama as if it were a
play, treating the Candidate as though he were really H.A., the result is
occasionally rather rough and frightening, especially in those lodges that pride
themselves on the realism of their performance.
The manner in which the Americans safeguard their ritual is also interesting.
In England, our Grand Lodge views the ritual as a 'domestic matter,' i.e., a
majority of the Brethren in any lodge may decide what form of ritual shall be
worked, and unless the Lodge was guilty of some serious breach, the Grand Lodge
would not interfere. In the U.S.A., the very reverse is the case. Each Grand
Lodge prescribes the ritual that its Lodges shall work, and usually the Grand
Lodge prints and publishes the "monitorial" or explanatory portions of the
rituals too. Ten out of the forty-nine Grand Lodges also publish the esoteric
ritual, in code or cipher, but this is forbidden in the others. Moreover, to
prevent innovations, the Grand Lodges protect their forms of working by the
appointment of officers, called Grand Lecturers, whose duty is not to lecture,
but to ensure that the groups of lodges under their care adhere to the official
workings. They do this by means of official demonstrations, called
'Exemplifications,' and during my first visit, I was lucky enough to see both
first and second degrees rehearsed in this way.
The exemplifications I saw in Boston required a necessary period of
adjustment to Bostonian English, but after that I would gladly give them full
marks; the work is splendid. It is proper, perhaps, to add a little tailpiece to
this chapter, which gives an insight to the American approach to their Masonry.
I am told that in several, if not most, of the U.S.A. jurisdictions, the Grand
Lecturers are paid for their services!
RITUALS and MONITORS
Grand Lodge practices, in regard to books of the ritual, differ from State to
State. In Pennsylvania, and California, for example, no written or printed
ritual is permitted. All tuition is, as they say, "from mouth to ear," i.e., the
Officers and Candidates must attend at rehearsals or "work-meetings" until they
have memorized their work simply by listening to it over and over again. In some
jurisdictions each officer is responsible for training his successor, privately,
not at rehearsals. The Ritual material is usually divided up into two
categories,
(I) "Monitors" which print non-secret portions of ritual and procedure,
symbolic Lectures, etc., all in plain language .
(2) The "Rituals" proper, which arc printed (in ten States) in some sort of
cipher with . . . dots . . . in the usual places.
Books, in both categories, are supposed to be rather difficult to obtain, but
one has the impression that this is merely a case of knowing where to look. The
Monitors need not concern us here, but the Rituals are interesting. There appear
to bc four different ciphers that are mainly used. One of the most popular is a
kind of "geometrical" code, made Up of straight lines, curves, angles and
symbols, which look vary difficult but are, in fact, fairly easy to break down.
In many jurisdictions, a two-letter code is used; usually the first and last
letters of each word, but occasionally the first two Attars of each word. These
two codes are fairly difficult to read until one begins to have a fair knowledge
of the "expected word"; but as SOON as the phrases become familiar, the
two-letter codes arc quite easy to read.
Most difficult of all is the one-letter code, in which only the first letter
of each word is used, and this is absolutely terrifying, almost impossible to
read until one has acquired a real knowledge of the ritual.
From the Officers' point of view, all this is simply a matter of patience and
regular attendance, but for the candidates it is another story. Here, in
England, the Candidate for passing has to learn the answers to perhaps eight or
nine questions, usually printed on cards in plain language, with perhaps one or
two words omitted. For raising he learns another seven or eight answers, and he
is through.
In the U.S.A. jurisdictions, these examinations are called "Proficiency
Tests," and they must be a really worrying experience. For example, the E. A.
passing to the F. C. has to answer about seventy-seven questions, and recite the
Obligation by heart, before he can pass his test; the F. C. must answer some
forty questions and the Obligation from memory, and the M. M., after he has
taken his third degree, another forty or so, again with the Obligation by heart.
Then, and not until then does he become a real member of the Lodge. Then he is
allowed to sign the Register, and enjoy the privileges of membership, including
a Masonic Funeral if he wants it.
All this would be difficult enough if the Q. & A. were printed in plain
language, but they are not. In those jurisdictions where no printed rituals are
permitted, the candidates must attend "Classes of Instruction," usually under
the care of the J. D., or S. D., until they have learned their work "from mouth
to ear." Elsewhere, they learn their work from the cipher books. I have a set of
the "Proficiency Tests" as used in Rhode Island, in their one letter code and
they are simply terrifying. I have been a Preceptor for many years, and I find
them difficult to read. Heaven knows how the candidates manage--but they do.
Here, I believe it is fair to say that American Masons, in the course of
passing their "Proficiency Tests" in all three degrees, acquire a much wider
knowledge of the ceremonies and especially of their symbolical meaning, than our
candidates get in England. Their patience and industry are more than justified.
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