Communicating the Scottish Rite Degrees to FDR in 1929

Cover Photo: Supreme Council, 33°, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. A Manual for the Communication of Degrees, 1943. Collection of Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library.

by Jeffrey Croteau, Director of the Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (18821945) became a Mason in 1911, but it was not until February 28, 1929, that he became a Scottish Rite Mason. FDR joined the Scottish Rite two months after becoming governor of New York and just four years before becoming President of the United States. I became interested in the circumstances surrounding Roosevelt's initiation into the Scottish Rite and decided to see what records we had in our archives collection that would shed light on it.

The Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives oversees an extensive collection of Annual Returns sent by each of the Valleys to the Supreme Council, NMJ, between 1859 and 1998. The Annual Returns tabulate all members by name and so are an excellent resource for finding out more information about 32nd degree members. Because I knew that Roosevelt became a Scottish Rite member in 1929 in the Valley of Albany, I decided to see if I could find his name among the initiates. And there he was!

The returns make it clear that he joined all four bodies on the same day, and the date of his initiation did not match the dates of any of those members listed near him in the returns. This seemed to indicate that his initiation was not part of a large class but a separate ceremony.

I decided to look at the 1929 Proceedings of the Council of Deliberation for New York to see what that source had to say about Roosevelt’s initiation. Sure enough, under the report for the Valley of Albany, the Commander in Chief stated that, under a special dispensation from the Deputy, they held a special meeting “in order to communicate the Scottish Rite degrees to Brother Franklin D. Roosevelt, Governor of the State of New York.”

The word “communicate” is key to understanding how FDR received the degrees. Historically, Scottish Rite degrees have either been conferred or communicated. Conferral is how most members today experience the degrees, fully staged and performed. Communication, on the other hand, is a different initiatic experience, one that was relatively common up until around the 1870s. In the case of communicating degrees, an officer of a Scottish Rite body, or someone standing in for him, simply reads an authorized text to the candidate. These texts are sometimes only a paragraph long for each degree; they summarize the degree and emphasize the lesson or theme to the candidate. The booklet pictured here was issued by the NMJ’s Supreme Council in 1943 and included instructions on how officers should communicate the degrees. It reads, in part, “…the presiding officer, or one acting in his behalf, should READ to all candidates the interpretation of each degree not to be exemplified in full ceremonial form. This may be done in the Lodge room or in the candidate’s room at the option of the local body.”

While it may appear at first that resources such as annual returns, proceedings, and manuals are quite dry, they are essential in helping us understand the past. In this case, we can better understand how the Scottish Rite’s leadership accommodated FDR’s busy governor’s schedule in order to ensure that he could become a member of the Rite.

Page showing the record of FDR’s Scottish Rite initiation. Annual Returns for Valley of Albany. Collection of Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, SC 037.

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