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LEEMASONRY
From the GrandMaster
OF PURPOSE
M. LIT Brother Eldon J Brown My Brethren, by the time that you receive this issue of the Voice of Freemasonry, I will have completed two-thirds of my term as your Grand Master. How fast time passes when you are having fun! And the year thus far, being largely devoid of significant problems, has been fun for me. Sandwiched between my several visits to other Grand Lodges are a host of local activities that I have found particularly enjoyable. I look back fondly on a wonderful Jewel Dinner in January; on a well-attended "Brotherhood Night" in Delaware in March; on the Grand Lodge trip to Las Vegas in April (which was not fruitful, in dollar terms, for me); on the Masonic Day of Thanksgiving, the annual "international night," and the testimonial dinner held in my honor by Singleton-Hope-Lebanon Lodge No. 7 in June; on the annual 4th of July celebration in the Palisades community; and on the sesquicentennial celebration of the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument on July 18. I want to thank the Grand Lodge officers, the officers of the Constituent Lodges, and the Brethren of this jurisdiction generally for making these events the successes that they proved to be. At the same time I would like to encourage continued support o f o k Grand Lodge School, which now meets on Thursday nights. You and your Lodge, my brethren, will benefit by your attendance and participation at the scheduled sessions of our Grand Lodge School. Looking ahead I urge y o u support of the Leadership Conference, which will open on September 18th at the 4-H Conference Center at Front Royal, Virginia, as well as your support of the Grand Masters Class, scheduled for November 13 and 14 at the Scottish Rite Temple, 2800 16th Street, N.W. Your early attention to registration for both of these events will be appreciated. I will also appreciate y o u favorable consideration of my 1998 charitable objective, the Northern Virginia 4-H Conference Center. With your help I hope to be able to make a significant contribution to that cause when we convene there for our annual conference in mid-september. Hence early receipt of your contribution will be sincerely appreciated. Checks, annotated to indicate your choice of purpose to be served, should be made payable to the Masonic Foundation. As the vacation season slowly but surely begins to wane and we enter into the upcoming period of Lodge visitations and Grand Lodge Communications, let us resolve that peace, prosperity, and harmony will continue to prevail in the Craft.
On the Cover: The Grand Master prepares to make his entrance at the SesquicentennialAnniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. Grant R. Berning, Junior Grand Warden; Mansour Hatefi, Senior Grand Warden; Eldon J. Brown, Grand Master; and Dan L Frederick, Deputy Grand Master pose with the cornerstone. The US. Marine Band performedfor the ceremonies as they did 150 years ago. The Color Guard presents the flags.
Grand Lodge Officers Elected Eldon J Rron n . . . . . . . . . Grand Mastei Dan L Fredellck ......... Deputy Grand Master Mansour Hatefi .............Senror Grand Warden ~tR Berning ......... Junior Grand Warden _ ._a1t W Mlnel. P.G.M . . . . Grand Secretary Jeiold J. Samet, P G.M. .......... Grand Treasurer Statfoid Appel . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grand Lecturer Robert H. Stat1 . . . . . . . . . Senior Grand Deacon Jules S Tepper . . . . . . Junior Grand Deacon G. Lce Ferguson . . . . . . . . Sen101Gland Steward 1 --qardProden ............ Junior Grand Steward
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~ mF. Ma~udhtim t .....(............. David A. Baleom ...............,,.*,., Gt%-d Hussein S.Abilmona,.. Assistlult &wrf VictorA.Adegbits ,.,.., Assi@tam-& Wdtes F.S m n ......... Assi&fturtGsand R O WB, Heyat ..........Asgistant Grand @nidE. Colson-Kinlq ..... Gr?ind Sword B w w W. FW$&& @om ................... Grand Pursuivatrt Carl R, L e V i ............... Grand ISM&& Gerhwd Manza .... George R. Edwelf ...,,..,.' George B. C o l m ....,,.,.... Pauk D. Gleason ,.............CrrmdLadge Phystch Albert M. Smith ........... ... Grand Smdard Beanr Patrick W. Lazere .........Aide to the Gnad Qaig R Lasher ............Aicie to the Grand Paul M,Bewl .............Aid@to the Gand Bill F.Grtsckl ............ Aids to MphonmE. Tanmian .......Ass
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Grand Historian Carl R. LeVine 50-Year Mason -
Conference Schedded
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o q b Education and Semke C a d t -
Em ' 72t Mickey Ander, mmunce &at 6&mm will convene at the 4-H Conferthe 1998 ence Center.w FriC$y, S~pPenaba18, immediately after h e r . inner thaf ev&Qg $ib%e &&m@cl at 6:00 p.m. in the Conference Center Dining &xbmi .. The theme ofthe corrfkme, whose sessions will extend from Friday eveningto mid-mdmbgon Sunday, September20,will be: "Share the Light -- Working Togelher to Build QurGentle Craft.'" is awell-versed authority The keynote speaker,WB Saaa-son, on Masonic Edumtion and Miitsonic Pl-anning. This y w the training program is designed to help Masons prepare far service in the East. It will include, as mal,specially designed workshops and seminars, with a special emphasis being placed on group problem solving. Every effort pirill also be made to provide the for counterpart sessions, particularly for Lodge Secretaries and Traasurers. If you have not already filed your reservation with the Office of the Grand Secretary, you are nrged to do so inunediately. This year the list of invited Master Masons includes the Wardens, the Deacons, Stewards, and the Lodge Secretaries and Treasurers. Others may attend at t h e own expense. Send in your application, with a reuma;ble registration check in the mourn sf $25.00 wifhoutdehy, Ifyou are apotentidladgeofficefin 1999,you need this confe~~=nee and the conference needs you.
Washington Monument Plaque Restored Part of the renovation process of the Washington Monument involved cleaning and restoration of this plaque, located at the base of the monument. The Grand Lodge completely underwrote the cost of refurbishing the plaque in addit~ont o collecting funds for the Monument renovation efforts.
Carl LeVine (above right),Grand Lecturer Emeritus, Grand Historian, and Chairman of the Grand Lodge Jurisprudence Committee, was raised in Takoma Lodge No. 29 (now Hiram-Takoma No. 10) in 1948. He officially became a 50-year Mason on June 22nd of this year. In token of his half-cenhuy of service, WB LeVine was presented his 50-year veteran's pin and card at the June communication of his Lodge The presentation was made by WB G. Lee Ferguson (left), Past Master of Hiram-Takoma Lodge No. 10 and currently the Senior Grand Steward of the Grand Lodge, and Neal F. Jarvis, (center) the Worshipful Master of HiramTakoma Lodge. On hand to observe the ceremony were large contingents of Grand Lodge Officers and Past Grand Masters. As one of the most beloved Masons in the District of Columbia, WB LeVine also holds the Grand Lodge Distinguished Service and the VaIentine Reintzel Medals, they having been previously awarded, respectively, in 1982 and 1991.
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The M d c Libmy and MUSUB Co@ttw
PROCEEDINGSAND DEBATESOF THE
105TH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSLON
The Message is Roman But Can We Live Up to It? By Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, 33" President and P~*ofessorof Public Adnzinistvation of the George Waslzingfon Universiqi. Remarks at the Celebration Banquet o f the SesquicentennialAnniversary o f the ,laying o f the cornerstoneo f the WashingtonMonument on Saturday, July 18, 7991?.
I am deeply honored . . . and deeply moved ..... to have been asked to address you on this very auspicious occasion. As president of The George Washington University, I am tempted to regard the choice of me as a speaker as an appropriate bit of casting. But as someone who has grown up, like most Americans, to have our nation's first President always before his eyes, I'm also tempted to flee in despair. For what can anyone possibly say about George Washington, whose monument forever reminds us of his importance, that hasn't been said many times before? Even Washington's contemporaries felt a high degree of awe when they contemplated his personality and his accomplishments. To many in Europe, including many in Great Britain, he seemed to step out of Roman as well as American history. In the 18th century, after all, educated people on both sides of the Atlantic conducted much of their training in the Latin language, which in turn communicated what I will call the great myth of the Roman Republic. Before the Caesars had stepped into place, this myth declared, Roman power rested on the shoulders of citizens who were first farmers and then warriors. When the Republic was threatened, they temporarily abandoned their plows in order to stand valiantly against the enemy. But no sooner had their heroism achieved the fruits of victory than they hastened back to their plows again, hanging their armor up on the wall until it was once again needed. To an almost eerie extent, George Washington matched this ideal. He had no wish, he once declared, "beyond that of living and dying an honest man on my own farm." And it was with great reluctance that he slowly determined to bow to public opinion and to become the first President of a new nation. , And indeed, he was so agitated when he delivered his first Inaugural Address that the spectators could see
him shaking. For those in Europe who favored the American rebels over their British opponents, Washington's passion for farming, combined with his triumph over the might of the British Empire, made him nothing less than a Roman Republican reborn -- a suitable companion for such worthies of Roman history as the Horatius who singlehandedly defended an important bridge against the entire Etruscan army. And to the extent that Washington shared the Roman passion for self-discipline and selfcontrol ... what we might call "the stoic
...when it comes to establishing your personal freedom it helps to be very very strong, very very rich, and very very ruthless. note" of the Roman character ... he also served as a crucial model for American society, which was still defining its ideas of good behavior, responsible behavior, and bad or anarchic behavior. Sometimes, when you read popular accounts of American history, Washington comes across as someone who differed in dramatic ways from the other Founding Fathers. He had actually risked his own life on the battlefield, where accidents often claimed more lives than enemy gunfire. He took only a step or two in the direction of political discourse, those countless communications between Founding Fathers like Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and their peers that helped to reason out the details of our Constitution . . . including our Bill of Rights. But if we keep our eyes on the issue
of political power, then Washington will be seen as typical of his time and typical of the rattiest stage of American history. The Americans who gave birth to this country were, you might say, connoisseurs of abusive power as practiced by monarchies and other autocratic systems, often with the colIusion of a national church. The Americans who created our way of life wanted above all, therefore, to design a type of national government that was immune to such abuses. Hence, to this very day, people are amazed to watch the competition between the different sectors of the federal government, of most state governments, and even of American municipalities. If what the Founding Fathers wanted to do was to see to it that the individual citizen could play such mighty powers off against each other to the citizen's advantage, then they brilliantly succeeded. Only let a respectable American be wrongfully detained by the police, and accused of some dreadful crime, and suddenly all the "rights" specified by the Constitution, or created in the spirit of the Constitution, become very very real. Habeas corpus means that he or she can't be detained forever by arbitrary decision of a judge. Freedom of speech means that he or she can't be punished merely for being offensive. Rights of assembly and worship add up to a sign that reads "PRIVATE LIFE UNDERWAY -KEEP OUT!" But above all there is the right to appeal, which can bring a case, ultimately,
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before the Supreme Court of the United States. Has a local or regional oligarchy railroaded an innocent person, perhaps to preserve the oligarchy's own corrupt fortunes? Then the right to appeal..... which will soon be interpreted by the oligarchy as a horrible contradiction of true justice and an open invitation to anarchy...will nevertheless reverse the conclusion of past human ages -- which has usually been that when it comes to establishing your personal freedom it helps to be very very strong, very very rich, and very very ruthless. Issues of political power being so central to our nation and to its traditions, it is a pleasure to recognize what a contribution George Washington made..... what a role he played.. ... in suggesting that the ancient lust for power could be controlled. There were Americans, after all, who thought that Washington should serve as a King rather than a President -- the kind of "George" whom Britain had failed to produce. Washington only had to appear in any community of the former colonies, and hundreds poured into the streets to welcome him. Had his life been a Shakespeare play, Americans would have watched him as his soul caught fire, as he moved from the background into the foreground of our national life, and as he brought our armed forces under his personal as opposed to official control. Soon, an outspoken opponent of the new King George would have been seized by federal agents and thrown into the kind of jail that cured the opponent not only of treason but of life itself. And Washington's career would have risen into the stratosphere of political ruthlessness, until he overreached himself and brought that career crashing down. The Shakespeare play would of course have ended with Washington's death. Instead, Washington played out the very opposite of a Shakespearean tragedy. Having proven his success as a military commander, he no sooner returned to civilian life than he seemed to lose even the smallest appetite for triumphant power. He responded with dignified reluctance to appeals that he serve as our first President. Nor, once in office, did he acquire a passion for power. He presented himself, and treated himself, as a public servant -- the public servant of the common good. Washington really seemed to feel that the brand-new American nation had a right to demand some hard work from him. And
for those who were inclined to cast him as a hero of the Roman Republic reborn, he served as a reminder that the Republic was in fact followed by an Empire, and that the Empire defended itself not with farmers briefly donning their armor but mainly with mercenary troops. America was going Rome one better. Its first President was teaching all of his successors that "power grabs" just weren't American. All of which helps us to understand more clearly why Washington, like so many of his colleagues and companions, was a member of the Masonic order..... and why the cornerstone-laying of the Washington Monument on July 4,1848 took place in so heavily Masonic a ceremony. What the Order represented in the 18th century were ideals of rationality that automatically enraged the tyrants enlightenment and of
Europe. But attempts at persecuting Freemasons turned out to be the very best way of producing more Freemasons. There was a deep affinity between the spirit of the Order and the rising spirit of democracy. What people so treasured in George Washington was a personal style that was also apolitical style -- and that was fully compatible with his decision to become a Mason, and the similar decisions made by so many of his colleagues. Issues like these, I must tell you, have an unexpected resonance in our own age. I don't have to remind you how suspicious we have all become where the pretensions of government are concerned. We are very worried, once again, about the ways in which political power tend to flow into the hands of those who sit at the very center of
a political system. Meanwhile, I also don't have to remind you that ideals of freedom in our society have advanced to the point where many of us fear that we will end up living in a state of anarchy. American political campaigns today are often fought out solely over the issue of political power. Step Number One in many campaigns is to find a large group of Americans who feel that power has unfairly been denied to them, or that they are being threatened by the power of other Americans -- whom they don't at all like. Television commercials during a 1990's style political campaign are often competitions in crudity. Sticking a label on your opponent is even more important than arguing with him or her. Latent prejudices are just waiting to spring into life. Perhaps a political researcher will discover some awful deed committed 40 or 50 years ago that can be publicized with only ten or fifteen million dollars in television commercials, plus another million or two for radio time. The politics of our own age, in short, can be a very disheartening phenomenon. It's a lot closer to the spirit of the Roman Empire than the Roman Republic. Huge sums are spent in helping a candidate to look triumphant, in making the candidate look like a compound of Augustus Caesar and Robin Hood, and in suggesting that foreigners and foreign statesmen respect no other American quite as much. On the one hand, runs the typical political argument, our candidate would make a firstclass commander-in-chief. On the other hand, our candidate also has the "common touch." Here's a great shot of him or her enjoying some pizza in Little Italy, where the candidate spends most of his or her free time. And when the candidate is done with some slices of pizza, heavy on the garlic, the candidate's of course starting to dream about a pastrami sandwich, some Chinese noodles, and afew delicious skewers loaded up with Greek shish-kebab, onions and tomatoes. The candidate, it appears, has an appetite for power. The least the voter can do is vote for him or her. Will it amaze you too much if a candidate who gets elected through rituals like that turns out to be a bit abusive where political power is concerned? It's at such a moment that the figure of George Washington needs to be recalled by our minds. As a major landowner in the State of Virginia ... as the husband of one
July 4th Celebration in the Palisades
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''Century of Roses" is Theme for Masonic Float New Year's Day
Depicting 100 years of the history of the Rose Parade, the Family of Freemasonry float in the world's most famous parade New Year's Day in Pasadena will undoubtedly be the fraternity's most colorful entry since Masons rejoined the January 1 lineup nearly 10 years ago. {The 1998 float is pictured here.) A replica of the horse-drawn carriage of the original Hunt Club, a popular feature of the early parades, is scheduled to be guided by famed actor-comedians Borgnine and Norm Crosby, both Imgstanding Masons. Masonsthroughout the world are to contribute to the cost of sponsoring the Family of Freemasonry float. You may do so by sending your donation to Robert C. Coe, Treasurer, P.O. Box 661567, Arcadia, CA 91066-1567. Merchandise order forms are also available. Please note that contributions are not tax deductible.
Masonic Leadership Course Offered on the Internee Lodge Masters need to be trained and educated, so they can be as effective as possible. This training needs to start long before you become Master, but sometimes Wardens and Deacons are not sure where they can find assistance. One place is the Masonic Leadership Center's (MLC) Internet Masonic Leadership Course. The MLC is an organization started by the late Allen E. Roberts, a wellknown Masonic author. It is located at the Library of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial. The MLC Internet Masonic Leadership Course includes information about planning; setting and meeting goals; teamwork; and communications. For each of these subjects, and more, the course presents you with interesting and important information in an easy-tolearn style. The MLC Internet Masonic Leadership Course is specially designed for Masons who enjoy using computers. Using your computer, and a program that allows you to see pages on the world wide web (usually Netscape or Internet Explorer), you can go to the MLC7sweb site. You will find information about the MLC and its Internet Masonic Leadership Course, plus other Masonic subjects. You can click on the word "registering" and the computer will take you to the
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registration form for the course. Print this form, fill in the information, and mail it to the address shown on the form, together with your registration fee of $25, and you'll be registered for the course. Then you will receive email from the MLC telling you your user name and password, which you can use to start reading Chapter 1. When you complete that Chapter, click on the button shown on your computer screen to receive the quiz for Chapter 1. You answer the quiz questions right on your computer, and click to send it to the Course Tutor. He then sends you email to let you know if you have shown Voice of Freemasonry Grand Lodge, F.A.A.M., of D.C. 5428 MacArthur Blvd., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20016-2524
that you understand Chapter 1, and he sends you your password for Chapta 2. This process goes on until you com@ete Chapter 10. When you complete Chapter 10, you have finished the course. The MLC +iIs you a very nice diploma and a free copy of the book Masonic Lifeline: Leadership, by Allen E. Roberts. If you would like to take the MLC Internet Masonic leadership course, please go to the MLC's web site at: http://freemasonry.org/mlc/ or you can send email to the MLC at: mlc@crosslink.net
Non-Profit Org. US.Postage PAID Permit No. 559 Washington,D.C.