‘Whew! Thank God that’s over!’

     

It’s been six years, so I can’t remember all the specifics of why Grand Lodge withdrew its recognition of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, but the disagreement has been resolved, according to a proclamation from Grand Master Richard J. Kessler.

Grand Lodge is meeting today in Masonic Hall to tackle all kinds of business for the year. Questions of relations with other jurisdictions inevitably arise, but I think it’s unusual to see squabbles between some of the oldest grand lodges in the world. I don’t see a previous edition of The Magpie Mason that explains the New York-Scotland rift, but I think I recall an incident of three individuals being rejected for membership here, who then found a lodge in Scotland that accepted them. Correction: Three New York Masons were expelled. They later became members of a Scottish lodge in Lebanon, as Scotland wouldn’t honor the New York expulsions. There is more to the affair, exacerbating details involving grand lodges active in Lebanon, but it’s all over now.

That could sound trivial to the uninitiated ear, but it speaks to a couple of the fraternity’s integral principles. But they worked it out, which honors possibly the bedrock of our fundamentals.

The decision required a vote of the members of Grand Lodge, which evidently happened, since our Grand Secretary disseminated the proclamation moments ago.

Congratulations to all parties! What a regrettable circumstance to have materialized back in 2017.

(I see Oscar is in Edinburgh today; he’s free to visit a lodge there now. 😁) 

     

‘Bailey’s boycott’

    

Cameron M. Bailey

The Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the State of Washington published a personal statement Sunday saying he believes it is necessary for grand lodges to withdraw fraternal recognition now from those few remaining jurisdictions that still have not established relations with their Prince Hall Affiliated neighbors.

Writing on Substack, Cameron Bailey, in an essay titled “Prince Hall Recognition: It Is Well Past Time,” says:

By recognizing as legitimate those jurisdictions that refuse to recognize their Prince Hall counterparts, the Grand Lodge of Washington, through its silence, gives its consent to an ongoing moral wrong. It stands silent as a discrimination that should have been done away with in 1897 continues in a small handful of states.

This was wrong in 1897, it is wrong today, and if we don’t do something about it, it will be wrong next year as well.

It is well past time that the Jurisdictions that do recognize their Prince Hall counterparts take positive action standing up for that which is good and right and moral.

This is no sudden outburst from the Grand Master. His opinion has been known for a long time. His reference to 1897 is a recollection of how his Grand Lodge made the extraordinary move to close the racial divide by recognizing PHA Freemasonry. At that time, the other grand lodges in the United States beat Washington into submission by withholding their recognition of that jurisdiction.

Washington tried it again in 1990, and that time the diplomacy worked, sparking the revolution that has spread across the country to all but six jurisdictions in the South.

My thoughts on this may be primitive, so please be patient. First, I don’t know that instigating less recognition is the best way to create more recognition. Maybe it would be. I do not know. Second, recognition between two parties must be mutual. I can’t say for a fact that the PHA grand lodges affected today even want the friendship of these now rogue southern grand jurisdictions. Maybe one or more or all would choose to establish mutual relations. I don’t know. (I’m one of the few who admits publicly that I don’t know things. My motto, “I drink and I don’t know things,” was co-opted and turned upside down by that dumb TV show.) Thirdly, it’s possible that progress is being made already in one or more of these southern states—say it with me: I don’t know—and an audacious provocation like this might be counterproductive.

Should make for lively conversation at the Conference of Grand Masters next February!

    

‘History in Tennessee’

     

Courtesy Amazon

A new chapter in the history of Freemasonry in Tennessee was started today when the voting members of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee agreed it is time to extend the fraternal hand to their neighbors of the MW Prince Hall Grand Lodge.

The two have coexisted since 1870. Details, like visitation, are not yet settled.

Congratulations everybody!

There remain six U.S. grand lodges that have yet to establish relations with Prince Hall Masonry.

Many thanks to Oscar for spreading the good news.

     

‘Weird Fact Wednesday: Amity with the Grand Orient’

     
I hope to make Weird Fact Wednesday a regular feature here on The Magpie Mason, but I also said that of Throwback Thursday, and that isn’t working out. Anyway, today’s Masonic Weird Fact comes from 100 years ago.

You know that the Grand Orient of France became estranged from the mainstream Masonic world in the 1870s after deleting from its constitution an affirmation of belief in deity,* but did you know that grand lodges in the United States re-established relations with the Grand Orient during and after World War I?

(Actually, nearly every grand lodge in the United States broke off relations with the Grand Orient in 1867 on account of the GOF’s meddling in Louisiana Masonry, but that’s another story.)

The First World War transformed Western Civilization and many parts beyond, and it made lasting changes on Freemasonry as well. In the United States, there took place a membership boom that caused the chartering of lodges throughout the then 49 grand lodges, as newly sworn military men sought the rights and benefits of Masonic membership in anticipation of being sent overseas. Plenty of civilians petitioned for the degrees of the Craft as well, of course, and the cumulative effect of all this prompted the construction of who-knows-how-many Masonic temples, Scottish Rite cathedrals, Shrines, and other infrastructure nationwide—those grand marble or limestone or brick, etc. edifices that today have been or are being abandoned as we speak.

In Masonic international relations, the influx of more than a million Americans into France created situations where U.S. soldiers sought lodge memberships in France. The National Grand Lodge of France was only a few years old, but enjoyed the approbation of the United Grand Lodge of England because, frankly, the English created it. There also existed the Grand Lodge of France, which too had been delegitimized and then found itself embraced anew because of the war, but this Masonic Weird Fact concerns the Grand Orient, into whose lodges a number of Americans sought entrance.

“New York set the ball rolling in September 1917 by granting to its members the right to fraternize with the Masons of France during the war,” says a 1918 report by the Grand Lodge of Nevada. “New Jersey went further and unequivocally recognized the Grand Lodge of France and repealed its edict against the Grand Orient. In December 1917, the District of Columbia recognized the Grand Lodge of France without a dissenting vote. California appointed a committee to devise plans for renewing relations with the French brethren, and extended the right to its brethren to visit any lodges in France, Belgium, and Italy. In Kentucky, Utah, Florida, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama also favorable action has been taken enabling their members to fraternize with the craftsmen of France. With the return of peace, this will make easy the establishment of permanent relations of amity and good will.”

Nevada itself joined that list of U.S. grand jurisdictions in 1918. Others, as far as I know (there may be others), would include Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Rhode Island. (Louisiana rescinded recognition after a couple of years.)

In New Jersey, on May 18, 1918, MW Bro. William M. Thompson was appointed Grand Representative to the Grand Orient of France near New Jersey. On July 25, RW Bro. Justin Sicard de Plauzoles was appointed Grand Representative of New Jersey near the Grand Orient. Plauzoles writes:


Dear Brother and Most Worshipful Grand Master,

I have received with joy and gratitude the patent by which the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of New Jersey has constituted and appointed me its representative to the Grand Orient of France. I am very happy and proud of the title, and of your trust and confidence. The Freemasons of France and of the United States possess the same ideals for which formerly Lafayette and now Pershing have crossed the ocean.

At that time, at this time, at all times, we have fought together the same battles for right and liberty.

Henceforth, nothing shall be able to break the bonds of friendship which unite our nations.

The admiration and gratitude for your heroes make more precious the title which you have conferred upon me.

I thank my beloved brethren of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of New Jersey most heartily, and beg you to believe me to be your faithful and devoted brother.

Maréchal Bernard Magnan

Further correspondence between New Jersey and the Grand Orient ensued. In October 1918, the secretary of the GOF’s Council of the Order (in 1871, after France’s defeat by Germany, and the fall of the Second French Empire, the office of grand master was abolished—its final grand master being Bernard Pierre Magnan, Marshal of France—and was replaced by a President de l’Ordre) wrote to ask if GLNJ would object to the Grand Orient conferring the degrees of Freemasonry upon New Jersey natives currently located in France. New Jersey’s response was to say no blanket approval was possible, but that a waiver of jurisdiction would have to be granted on an individual basis. New Jersey’s Grand Master, speaking to the 132nd Annual Communication of his Grand Lodge in Trenton on April 16, 1919, said:


The resumption of our former friendly relations with the Grand Orient of France by the rescission of the interdict of non-intercourse led to correspondence which has indicated not only a lively appreciation of our action, but as well an apprehension of conditions arising from the war and American participation therein and a sense of the Masonic properties involved, that justifies making it in part a matter of record in this address.

And later:

The great war has convulsed nations, cost emperors and kings their heads, and disturbed the great heart of mankind, but Freemasonry emerges from the conflict stronger than ever in her history. The eyes of all the world are upon the craft. They realize the tremendous possibilities for good that rest in our organization, and expect great things from us in the reorganization of society. I have no hesitation in affirming that we will live up to every expectation.

Ours in an order that shall stand

A light upon a nation’s hill,

A voice forbidding all that’s ill—

A source of strength for all that’s good

In Justice, Love, and Brotherhood.

In the Grand Lodge of New York it was said: “We still question, nevertheless, the wisdom of the move, from a Masonic standpoint, and we trust New Jersey will, before long, reconsider the matter. We love her too much to see her go astray unwarned.” (The Grand Orient had chartered a lodge in New York City, which didn’t sit well with GLNY.)

I do not know when the American grand lodges resumed their fraternal divorce from the Grand Orient—or maybe they never did, and everyone forgot? Maybe the amity lasted to 1940, when the Grand Orient was shuttered during the Nazi occupation? I’ll keep reading.





*The story is more complicated than that. Writing his Modern Masonry, Joseph Fort Newton explains:

As a matter of fact, from its foundation till 1849, the Constitution of the Grand Orient contained no declaration of belief in deity, yet during all those years it was fully recognized by the Masonic world. In August 1849, the following clause was inserted in the Constitution: “Freemasonry has for its principles the existence of deity and the immortality of the soul.”

As this declaration brought the Grand Orient into direct conflict with the Church—on the ground, as the clerical party affirmed, that it was setting up a rival religion—in September 1877, the following words were substituted:

Bro. Frédéric Desmons

“Masonry has for its principles mutual tolerance, respect for others and for itself, and absolute liberty of conscience.” For making this change, the Grand Orient was disfellowshipped by nearly every Grand Lodge in the world, especially in English-speaking lands, whereas it was only a return to its original position, when, as has been said, it was regarded as truly Masonic. The change was proposed, not by an atheist—if there be such a thing outside an insane asylum—but by Brother [Frédéric] Desmons, a Protestant Christian minister, the object being to parry the criticism that Masonry was trying to foster a spurious religion. At the same time it was left optional with the lodges to display or not to display the Bible in their ceremonies.
     

‘How good and how pleasant…’

They made it official a few days ago: The Grand Lodge of New York and the Grand Lodge of Washington, DC again are in amity.