The Philalethes

Contents
 
 

 The President's Corner                                              Infamous or Strange Masons
 

 Education The Route To Our Future                          The Teutonic Knights
 

 Some Thoughts About Leadership                             Letters To The Editor
 

 Preservation of Masonic Vocabulary                          We Are Guilty
 

 Masonic Toasts                                                         Book L'arnin'
 

 The Bisection of the Yin-Yang                                   Through Masonic Windows
 

 Cyril Batham, Foremost English
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

the philalethes

The Journal of Masonic Research and Letters

Jerry Marsengill, FPS Editor

401 Masonic Temple, 1011 Locust St.

Des Moines, IA 50309 (515) 244-6011

FAX (515) 244-2540

OFFICERS

John Mauk Hilliard, FPS, President

Lehman College

Bronx, New York 10468 (212) 960-8713

Wallace E. McLeod, FPS. 1st Vice President

Victoria College University of Toronto

73 Queen's Park Crescent

Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S 1K7

Forrest D. Haggard, FPS, 2nd Vice President

Overland Park Christian Church 7600 W75th St

Overland Park, KS 66204 (913) 677-4646

Allen E. Roberts, FPS, Executive Secretary

Drawer 70, 110 Quince Ave.

Highland Springs, VA 23075 (804) 737-4498

FAX 804/328-2386

Henry G. Law, FPS, Treasurer

2608 E. Riding Dr. Wilmington, DE 19808

(302) 737-9083

Harold L. Davidson, FPS, Librarian

The Philalethes Society 1903 10th St. W.

Billings, MT 59102 (406) 259-1552

LIVING PAST PRESIDENTS

Philalethes Society

William R. Denslow FPS

Robert V Osborne, FPS

Eugene S. Hopp, FPS

Dwight L. Smith, FPS

Robert L Dillard Jr., FPS

Bruce H. Hunt, FPS

Allen E. Roberts, FPS

John R. Nocas, FPS

Jerry Marsengill, FPS

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY EMERITUS

Carl R. Griesen, FPS

S. Brent Morris, FPS

CONTENTS

The President's Corner

Pecos Bill and the Buffalo Soldiers

Infamous or Strange Masons

Education The Route to Our Future

1991 Semi-Annual Assembly & Feast

The Teutonic Knights

Some Thoughts About Leadership in Craft (Symbolic) Masonry

Full of Sound and Fury

The Importance of the Preservation of Masonic Vocabulary

We Are Guilty!

Masonic Toasts

Book L'arnin'

The Bisection of the Yin-Yang

Through Masonic Windows

ON THE COVER

Our cover this month features a painting of Pecos Bill as portrayed in Joseph E. Bennett’s article "Pecos Bill and the Buffalo Soldiers." The article was written by Brother Joe and he has also done sketches of Pecos Bill and the cover illustration. We thank this multi-talented Brother for sharing his abilities with the members of the Philalethes Society.

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The President's Corner

by John Mauk Hilliard, FPS

In the ceremony of installation, each new Worshipful Master is forcefully enjoined never to close his Lodge without giving, or causing to be given, a lecture or part of a lecture. This injunction represents one of the most profound and essential duties to which the Master commits himself. It is nothing less than a demand that he "educate" his brethren. The proper educational purview of a Master (and his Lodge) is, of course, Freemasonry, in all its myriad aspects.

Therefore, the term, "lecture," as used in the context of the Master's installation into the Chair of Solomon, should not be construed in a narrow sense: for the word, "lecture," was intended by the ancient fathers of the Speculative Craft to encompass every known method, means, or mode of instruction at the Master's command. The Master's function is, therefore, quintessentially an "educative" one. His mandate is not only to rule and govern the Craft, but to secure and ground that governance by liberally teaching to all his fellows the Gentle and Royal Art of Freemasonry. In this regard, all his brothers can be said to be his apprentices. Seen in this context, the Master' s responsibilities are the same in the speculative Lodge over which he presides, as those of his ancestral counterpart and precursor in the operative Craft Lodges of the Middle Ages. The Master sets the Craft to work by proper instruction, and by the encouragement of the highest standards of proficiency not only in ritual but in all things Masonic.

The true work of a modern Speculative Craft Lodge is not to erect actual buildings using the ancient operative arts of Masonry, but to use the tools and symbols of the Ancient Craft to raise "that house not made with hands," that spiritual temple that lies dormant and implicit in every soul under heaven. This mandate for Masonic work, instruction, and knowledge is not confined to Master alone. The first implicit duty which confronts an Entered Apprentice in our ritual is to "improve himself in Masonry." As with all human endeavors and employments, the careful study and scrupulous gathering of knowledge and experience are the only real pathways to mastering the complexities and the subtleties of any enterprise, and ultimately, to discovering its true essence. Just as this is true of the tasks we set for ourselves in that profane world in which we live our lives and pursue our varied employments, so it is equally true in Freemasonry.

Indeed, every Master Mason who glimpses the profound beauty and worth of the institution becomes a teacher. One of the greatest joys of Craft life is the ability to impart Masonic knowledge to one's brothers in a spirit of true sympathy and genuine patience, particularly if this is infused with an abiding sense of the humility and joyful affection that should characterize all Masonic transactions. In an institution as vast and complex as ours, learning becomes one of the true elements of Craft survival. Making members is one thing; making Masons is quite another.

How then does a Master and his Lodge--this sacred, covenanted community of brothers and friends--go about this most essential of Masonic enterprises? Firstly, by acknowledging that ritual alone, while a great teaching tool, is insufficient for the full and complete instruction of the Craft. Six hundred years of ritual development from an astounding variety of sources have given Freemasonry an instrument of great beauty and profundity, but the ritual's levels of meaning, its layers of significance, its relationships to history, philosophy, religion, and all the liberal arts and sciences, can only be fully plumbed by some regular measure of scholarly explication and interpretation. Many Masons glibly spout massive, word-perfect gouts of ritual, but how many of them could give a reasonable interpretation or commentary on the work, even if their very Masonic futures depended on it?

Secondly, a constant awareness of the need for Masonic education, and a reliable mechanism for promoting that awareness must be established in every regular and well-governed Lodge. Masonic education must become a major priority in the Lodge; it must occupy, in the life of the Craft, as prominent a place as the ritual does. Ideally, how should this be done?

I. The Master and Wardens should constitute themselves into a standing Lodge Educational and Programming Committee. The educational plans and programming ideas of the Master, as they mature, can be bolstered by the developing ideas and plans of his probable successors, and thusly, great continuity, consistency, and constancy of educational purpose can be achieved in the Lodge.

II. This permanent Lodge educational commission can begin to search among the members of the Lodge, and among the Craft at large for speakers, topics, and ideas about Masonry's history, traditions, and literature which might be set before the Lodge in a series of coordinated programs.

III. Speakers alone are not enough; films, videos, recorded cassettes, and a host of new communication technologies are available. Panel discussions featuring groups of Masonic experts on ritual, Masonic history, letters, Masonic art and music can involve the side-liners in meaningful discussions with questions and answer opportunities. An effort should be made to achieve active participation from all regular attenders. One of the most effective and congenial "classrooms" can be the Table Lodge or Masonic Festive Board, wherein the brothers might enjoy, in this most amiable of Craft contexts, excellent speakers, music, and commentary of a Masonic nature on a variety of appropriate topics, all of which may be conveniently and attractively dispersed among the traditional seven toasts.

IV. To effectively administer such an educational program, the Master and his Wardens must call on Masonic support institutions which have developed speakers bureaus, films and videos, and published materials on every aspect of Freemasonry. Among the most important are: the Masonic Service Association and its Short Talk Bulletins and vast array of other materials; the great library and museum collections of the Craft including those of the Grand Lodges of Iowa, New York, and Pennsylvania and those of the Northern and Southern Jurisdictions of the Scottish Rite; the American Lodge of Research in New York, the Missouri, Iowa, and the California Lodges of Research and similar research Lodges and societies across North America; the Masonic Book Club of Illinois overseas resources such as the collections of the British Grand Lodges and the transactions of the premier research Lodge in the world, Quatuor Coronati, in London; and the Harry Carr Collection of the Scottish Rite Valley of Dallas. Finally, there is the inimitable resource of the periodicals published by both jurisdictions of the Scottish Rite, by the Knights Templar, and the Royal Arch and various publications of individual Grand Lodges; and last, but not least, the Philalethes Society, its semi-monthly magazine and generous bonus publications.

V. The Master and Wardens should encourage individual members of the Lodge to explore for the Masonic light therein the by-ways of the myriad appendant bodies of the Craft, as long as that involvement does not materially limit the individual's ability to be of service to his Lodge. They should additionally promote, by well-planned campaigns, the individual involvement of the brothers of the Lodge in the Masonic reading programs which are funded by the largest of the library collections in the Masonic world. An immersion in Masonic scholarly activities by a significant minority of brothers in a Lodge might well revolutionize the attitudes of the Lodge's general membership, and might profoundly enhance and enrich the general level of appreciation for the Masonic experience, and improve the depth of Masonic comprehension demonstrated by the fraternal community at large.

VI. Lastly, since Masonic education does not end at the door of the Lodge Chamber, well-organized trips, excursions, and pilgrimages to great Masonic shrines such as the National Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington, the House of the Temple and the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Washington, the museums and collections of the various Grand Lodges, and extraordinary Masonic buildings such as the incomparable Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania temple in Philadelphia can provide an extraordinary educational opportunity for brothers of the Lodge and their families.

May we all--Masters, Fellows, and Apprentices alike--apprehend that in the Temple of the Ancient C raft there are many rooms, many rich chambers of beauty and splendor. We Freemasons lack only the lamplight to find our way through the veiled labyrinth of its corridors. Where is the light for the journey to be found? It lies in the gentle mind of each brother, and awaits only the avid seeking of his fellows, and the passionate kindling of his own curious heart and questing spirit.

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Pecos Bill and the Buffalo Soldiersby Joseph E. Bennett, MPSSouthwestern United States specifically Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona became a historical stage for the Negro soldier following the Civil War. It is a rather obscure story, known primarily to a handful of scholars and researchers who have displayed an interest in that segment of the country's development. A few white officers shared the history with black troops, for the simple reason that only white men held army commissions. One of those was William R. Shafter of Galesburg, Michigan. Shafter did not command black soldiers through any burning desire to achieve racial equity for them; it was just a matter of circumstances. Notwithstanding, the history of the Buffalo Soldier and that of General Shafter are inextricably entwined.

At the end of hostilities in April, 1865 the total of Negro fatalities in the United States Army stood at 33,000. During the course of the Civil War, some 180,000 Negroes were in military service. Lincoln' s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 opened the door for large numbers of former slaves eager to take up arms against the Confederacy. Racial prejudice was a more formidable enemy than any rebel. Discrimination, distrust, and contempt for his ability as a fighting man was a part of the daily diet of the black soldier. Slowly, however, the Negro scratched out a niche for himself in the military, albeit one yielding little glory or publicity.

Two renowned Union generals, George Gordon Meade and William Tecumseh Sherman, paraded a quarter of a million northern veterans down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington in grand review in May, 1865. One year later, the strength of the U. S. Army stood at 56,641. Although the Confederacy was no longer a military problem, a very serious situation existed on the western frontier with uncontrolled Indian depredations.

Congress and the War Department addressed the Indian problems by authorizing the formation of six Negro regiments for frontier service, two of cavalry and four infantry. This action opened two decades of Negro military activity emanating from a chain of small forts scattered throughout the southwest. The four regiments that eventually evolved as "Buffalo Soldiers" were the 9th and 10th Cavalry, plus the 24th and 25th Infantry. Colonel Benjamin Grierson and Colonel Edward Hatch, two Civil War heroes, were tapped to command the cavalry units. In the spring of 1867, Colonel Ranald Slidell MacKenzie was ordered to recruit an all-Negro infantry regiment, the 41st, at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. MacKenzie's second in command was to be Lt. Colonel William R. Shafter.

The record of the formation of the 10th Cavalry is a litany of misery. At Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Colonel Grierson began to staff the all-black regiment. His personnel requirements were so demanding that the process of recruiting suitable enlistees was painstakingly slow. The $13 a month pay, with clothes, food and lodging, constituted one of the few opportunities available to the young Negro male in 1867, and Grierson had no lack of applicants. Military service was no bed of roses at Leavenworth for the black trooper. They were assigned to the most undesirable quarters by a bigoted post commander, who would not even allow the black soldiers to parade with white troops.

Somehow, Grierson assembled his command, and moved into the field by August, 1867. Headquarters for the 10th Cavalry were established at Fort Riley, Kansas. Equipment issued to the black soldiers was the poorest in the entire army, and continued to be so throughout their long stay on the frontier. Worn out harness, wagons, and camp equipage, along with obsolete weapons and windblown horses some over 15 years old were issued to the 9th and 10th Cavalry to subdue the formidable Indian.

The 9th Cavalry, recruited and headquartered at Greenville, Louisiana, suffered about the same hardships, but with one difference. Colonel Hatch did not have the same views as Grierson in regard to qualified recruits, thus he filled the ranks quickly. Many were enlisted who really were unfit for military duty. Similar activity was taking place at Baton Rouge where Colonel MacKenzie and Lt. Colonel Shafter were assembling the 41st Infantry Regiment.

William Rufus Shafter was born on a farm near the present town of Galesburg, Michigan, on October 16, 1835. He was the eldest of four children, three boys and a girl, born to Hugh Morris Shafter and Eliza Sumner. Hugh, of Welsh ancestry, brought his young bride to their wilderness homestead in 1833. A farmer and a surveyor by vocation, he would later become an ardent abolitionist .

Young William gained the nickname "Bull" during his early school years. He was somewhat of a bully, and domineering by nature. He was also a good student who was able to obtain a teaching position at the completion of his public school education without benefit of college. He did so well that he moved into a better teaching job and entered a school offering a teaching degree and credentials. The Civil War interrupted Shafter's academic pursuits.

Bull enlisted with the 7th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, over his father's violent disapproval. His aptness for military life gained promotion from private to first lieutenant in about a month. Before long he was in Washington with the 7th Michigan and part of General McClellan's Army of the Potomac. Shafter participated in the Peninsular Campaign in 1862, and received a serious hip wound at the Battle of Fair Oaks for which he refused medical assistance for 56 hours. He also acquitted himself with valor during that action, and was eventually awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor although it was in 1895. Shafter was an able leader and a talented organizer. These traits earned him steady promotion, but his rough personality made him the terror of his subordinates.

Shafter took time out to marry Harriett Grimes while on leave at Galesburg in September, 1862. The honeymoon was a short one as he was given a promotion to major and transferred to the new l9th Michigan Infantry, and immediate duty in the area of Nashville, Tennessee. In constant action in that theater, he was eventually taken prisoner during the Battle of Franklin when his brigade commander surrendered his entire force. A miserable march to Libby Prison in Richmond ended with Shafter being part of a prisoner exchange, ending his twomonth ordeal. He was returned to duty in the Nashville area and chosen to organize an all-Negro regiment, the 17th U.S. Infantry. With his new command and the rank of colonel, Shafter participated in the Battle of Nashville in December, 1864. His regiment distinguished themselves during the action, gaining further high regard for Shafter' s ability as a commanding officer.

He also became a Mason in 1864, while on leave in Galesburg. He received the degrees in Prairie Lodge No. 92 and began a life-long membership in the Fraternity. His release from the army following the end of the war was delayed until November, 1866. He was assigned occupational duty in Nashville, and did such a fine administrative job that he was offered the position of Commissioner of Police in the city. He politely declined and returned to Galesburg.

Civilian life was tedious and burdensome for Shafter, and he looked again to the military. Even though the army was undergoing a severe reduction in force, he was awarded a regular commission as lieutenant colonel in January, 1867, thanks in a large measure to his success with black troops in the Civil War. As previously stated, he reported to Baton Rouge and the 41st Infantry Headquarters.

When the regiment was assembled, the 41st moved into new headquarters at Brownsville, Texas, to begin about 30 years of constant Indian warfare and peace-keeping activity. The 9th and 10th Cavalry, plus the surviving infantry regiments, the 24th and 25th, were scattered throughout Texas for many years. They manned posts along the Rio Grande at Forts Duncan, Ringgold, Clark, and Quitman. The Butterfield-Overland roads were guarded by Fort Stockton and Fort Davis, farther north. In the Hill Country and even farther north, the Forts of McKavett, Concho, Mason, Lancaster, and Griffin were refurbished and staffed by Buffalo Soldiers. Shafter was constantly involved in the activity of most of these posts at various times during his two decades on the frontier. He commanded many actions against the fierce Comanche, Kiowa, Lipan, and Apache during those years at the head of both cavalry and infantry Buffalo Soldiers.

Among Shafter's great accomplishments was to chart the Staked Plains in the Texas Panhandle and the desolate White Sands of western Texas. In his dogged pursuit of fleeing Indian raiders, he pushed to the Pecos River, thereby earning the sobriquet he would have the rest of his life. The Indians had named the Negro troopers "Buffalo Soldiers" because of the similarity between their curly, black hair and that of the sacred buffalo. It was a proud title the Buffalo Soldiers retained through the Spanish-American War.

Shafter was not loved by his troops. He was too hard and demanding. He did have their respect. His tactless manner eventually landed him in Washington to explain his actions on the Rio Grande, where he had followed Indians into Mexico repeatedly, and was accused of trying to ferment a war between the two countries. He was also accused of cowardice and immorality by a disgruntled lieutenant and 23 enlisted men. Shafter defended his actions before a Congressional committee, then demanded a court of inquiry. The proceedings cleared Shafter of all charges, and the unhappy lieutenant, Edward P. Turner, was soon obliged to resign his commission. Shafter' s esteem among the army's highest command was as sound as ever.

By 1880, Colonel Shafter was suffering from a number of physical problems. Always of large build, he had become obese, and was suffering from gout, along with varicose veins. His old untended hip wound was a constant aggravation. His disposition, never pleasant, soured even more than usual. This was Shafter's state as commanding officer of Fort Davis in June, 1881, when he was obliged to become involved in an incident involving Second Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper, the first Negro graduate of West Point.

Flipper had been stationed at Fort Concho, where he became friendly with a white female resident at the post, Mollie Dwyer. He aroused the ire of two white officers, and the incident led to his transfer to Fort Davis, where he was assigned the duty of Commissary Officer. A shortage of $1,500 was discovered in his commissary fund soon after Flipper took over, resulting in a charge of embezzlement. His ill-advised actions in trying to remedy the situation made matters worse. Shafter was obliged to convene a general court martial and try him on the charges . Flipper was acquitted of the embezzlement charge, but judged guilty of conduct unbecoming to an officer. The penalty was a dishonorable discharge.

Flipper lived a long and productive life as a civilian, passing away in 1940. In 1976, relatives and friends, were successful in having his record altered to reflect "honorable discharge" lowering the curtain on a sad affair.

Shafter spent the next few years performing his normal garrison duties and spending some time in the territories of New Mexico and Arizona, where Apache problems had demanded a concentration of military personnel. The Buffalo Soldiers were well represented in those activities. In some 900 engagements with hostile Indians in the southwestern frontier after 1865, Shafter and the Buffalo Soldiers were involved in more than almost any other segment of the military. They were burdened during President U.S. Grant's administration with the "Quaker Policy" regarding Indians. That meant that shooting was to be avoided if at all possible, and that the army's primary task was to herd the Indians back on government reservations. The policy was abandoned eventually, and a more realistic attitude replaced it. Force was permitted when deemed appropriate.

Since direct confrontation was not the way the Indian raider normally chose to fight, the army's role generally meant pursuing the perpetrators' cold trail. The Buffalo Soldiers' inferior mounts prevented overtaking the Comanche and Kiowa raiders. In addition to each brave riding a good horse, he generally led a spare to mount when his first became tired. Destroying supplies and recovering stock, plus the constant harassment of pursuit, were the tactics that defeated the Indian and forced him back to the reservation.

Shafter's two decades with the Buffalo Soldiers ended when he was transferred to the First Infantry, with headquarters at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. His Indian-fighting days were over with the exceptions of brief duty in the Dakota Territory during the great Sioux uprising of 1890-91. His role was minor in that action.

President Grover Cleveland ordered Pecos Bill and the First Infantry to intercede the railway strike in 1894. Postal workers had joined the strike and the mail was interrupted at Los Angeles. Shafter moved quickly to restore order, and the mail was rolling within a couple of days. Considerable public acclaim came to the old soldier for his swift and efficient compliance to orders.

There was time now to build a retirement home next to his daughter Helen's large ranch in Bakersfield. Shafter now tipped the scales at 300 pounds, and suffered constant agony from gout and varicose veins. Retirement offered an appealing prospect. In May, 1897, Shafter was promoted to brigadier general. Tragedy struck, though, blunting the happy anticipation of a peaceful retirement. Bill's beloved wife, Harriet died, and was laid to rest at the Precidio in San Francisco before she had the chance to know that the old soldier had received the second star of a major general on May 4, 1898.

General Shafter's promotion to two-star rank was in line with his new assignment to head the invasion forces scheduled to attack Cuba. In mid-February, 1898, the battleship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor, with heavy loss of life. A war-minded country now demanded action, and a reluctant President McKinley recommend it to Congress. The United States was historically unprepared for war, with the exception of the navy. They had been strengthening the fleet for several years, primarily due to the urgings of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt. The army had no more than 50,000 ill-equipped regulars. Once more, the country must depend on a volunteer army.

McKinley called initially for 125,000 volunteers and Shafter was tapped to prepare them for an invasion of Cuba. A bumbling Secretary of War, Russell Alger, and a meddling War Department staff, selected the port of embarkation for the invasion force. It was Tampa, Florida totally inadequate to accommodate the necessary vessels to transport the invasion force, and to provide adequate facilities for the horde of arriving volunteers, national guard units, and the regular army. Supplying the vast throng was a logistical nightmare over which Shafter had little control. The invasion date, originally projected for the fall of 1898, after the rainy and Yellow Fever season, was moved up to June. Conflicting policies and constant meddling from Washington added to the confusion. The horde of newsmen which had attached itself to the expedition was likewise of little comfort to Shafter.

General Shafter was a brittle-tempered man, devoid of any charm, when he felt well. He was in an evil mood during the trial at Tampa. In addition to the catastrophic situation prevailing at the port of embarkation, he was in agony from gout. Two puffing privates were needed to hoist him aboard his horse. The questions of the newsmen were gruffly turned aside, and Shafter's public image took a beating in the press. When he sharply rebuffed Richard Harding Davis, a celebrated newsman with a national following, Pecos Bill was flayed in print.

Shafter was the most maligned military figure in our country's history and his success in Cuba was deemed by the press to be a bumbling happy accident. Nevertheless, 17 ,000 men and their supplies were loaded on 32 ships at Tampa, and transported to the coast of Cuba, departing on June 22nd. They landed on Daquiri Beach, west of the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, with little resistance and worked their way toward the city through a steaming jungle. The major military action of the war occurred at the San Juan Heights, two hills that were heavily fortified by the Spanish army. The Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the First U.S. Cavalry (the Roughriders), led by Lt. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt assaulted Kettle Hill. Dismounted, the intermingled commands worked their way up the hill to secure a tenuous victory, and clear the way to Santiago.

The surrender of the Spanish forces was accepted by Shafter on July 17, 1898, following a couple of weeks of negotiation. Commodore Winfield S. Schley added his substantial effort to the Spanish defeat on July 1st by destroying their fleet, bottled up in the harbor at Santiago. The Philippines had been taken by Admiral Dewey's defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila harbor, and General Nelson A. Miles took Puerto Rico in a bloodless invasion. The Spanish-American War was over in a matter of weeks. Shafter and his invasion troops were back in New York by August, having been relieved.

The War Department decision to invade in June and July had resulted indirectly in the death of 5,000 men trom typhoid, Yellow Fever, and malaria. A direct result of invading Cuba during the July rainy season. Combat deaths stood at 379. Shafter had been chosen to lead the Cuban campaign over younger and fully-qualified senior officers for the simple reason that he presented no political threat to the administration. Pecos Bill had no political ambition, General Miles and some others did.

After a round of triumphal appearances, many with President McKinley, General Shafter returned to San Francisco, and assumed command of the Department of California. He passed the balance of his active duty quietly and retired on July 1, 1901 to his Bakersfield home. He became a speaker of considerable accomplishment and kept busy with public activity until he contracted pneumonia and passed away on November 6, 1906.

As the work of the Buffalo Soldiers came to a conclusion on the western frontier, so had the career of William R. Shafter, America's most-maligned officer. They had shared many grim experiences together and received little acclaim or recognition for their efforts. History will not forget the Buffalo Soldier nor Pecos Bill Shafter. The pride of Galesburg, Michigan, masked his devotion to duty, and love of country behind a rough exterior. His profane and domineering manner alienated some, but not those who mattered. Shafter was a man of unswerving loyalty to God, country, and family. We are proud to call him brother!

References

John S. Bowman, (Editor), The Civil War Almanac, World Almanac Publications New York, 1983.

Bruce Catton, Terriole Swift Sword, Doubleday and Company, Garden City, New York, 1963; Never Call Retreat, Doubleday and Company, Garden City, New York, 1965.

Donald Barr Chidsey, The Spanish American War, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1971.

William R. Denslow, 10,000 Famous Freemasons, Volumes I and IV, Transactions of the Missouri Lodge of Research, 1960.

John Cameron Dierks, A Leap to Arms, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1970.

Col. R. Ernest Dupuy, USA (Ret.), The Compact History of the United States of America History of the United States Army, Hawthorne Books, Inc., New York, 1956.

A.M. Gibson, The Lift and Death of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1961.

Allan Keller, The Spanish American War, Hawthorne Books, Inc., New York, 1969.

William H. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1967.

James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volumes X and XIII, Bureau of National Literatures, Inc., New York, 1897.

Robert M. Utley, Fort Davis, National Park Service Historical Handbooks Series 38, Washington D.C., 1965.

Archives of the Grand Lodge of A.F.&A.M. of New Mexico.

Pamphlets: Fort Davis, National Park Service, Fort McKavett. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

----o----

Infamous or Strange Masons

by Nelson King MPS

This time, we have something just a little bit different in the way of Masonic Education. I know, some of you loathe those two words. As soon as you hear them, I can see the hair on the backs of your necks stand up, and I can hear you saying, "Oh, no! Not this again! I hope he keeps it short. My goodness, who wants to hear the same old stuff, time after time." Well, good news, Brethren! It's not the same old stuff. It's new old stuff. We're going to talk about Strange or Infamous men who were, or may have been, Masons. We begin with a Frenchman.

The Chevalier Charles D'Eon of France was born on October 5, 1728, and was given the name Charles Genevieve Louise Auguste Andre Timothee D'Eon de Beaumount. He was obviously born of a noble family. He became a Freemason in 1766 in the Lodge of Immortality, No. 376, which met at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, London, England. He served as Junior Warden in 1769 and 1770. He had many talents; he was an expert fencer and soldier, and an able diplomat who successfully negotiated the Treaty of 1763, ending the Seven Years War in which Austria, France, Sweden and Saxony were united against Frederick the Great of Prussia (who was joined by England).

So what, you say? Nothing strange about him so far. Well, let's look a bit further.

He unfortunately had an effeminate appearance, and occasionally masqueraded as a woman. His enemies in France accused him of being a woman masquerading as a man. Masons wondered whether a woman had been initiated into the Craft. The controversy about his sex caused considerable gambling, and speculation got out of hand. Finally an insurance company filed a petition to have the matter adjudicated. Witnesses testified that he was a woman. About this time he accepted an offer of Louis XVI to receive a generous pension, on condition that he return to France, and resume the garb of a woman. From this time on, with rare exceptions, he wore women's clothes. When he died on May 21, 1810, a competent physician performed an autopsy and clearly proved that D'Eon was a man after all.

Let's now return to England and an English Reverend sir.

The Reverend William Dodd was an English Freemason, who was born in 1729, and died in 1777. He was the first Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of England, in the year 1775. He delivered the oration at the dedication of Freemasons' Hall in London in 1776. He was also the author of many books and literary papers including " Beauties of Shakespeare. " Weakness of character in money matters caused him to be tried for the crime of forgery. He had the effrontery to sign the name of the Earl of Chesterfield, in the matter of 4200 pounds sterling. He was convicted of forgery and executed. The affair created great public commotion and attempts were made both by the City of London, and by 30,000 people who signed petitions to the King to commute the sentence. But (to show how severe English Criminal law was at the time) the sentence was carried out. It was the last public hanging in England. Not a good ending for a man of God and a Mason.

Now from an Englishman to a Scottish American.

Matthew McBlain Thompson was born in Scotland, and was a member of two Scottish Lodges and a Past Master of one of them. He also affiliated with King Solomon Lodge, No. 22, in Montpelier, Idaho when he settled there in 1881. He later demitted from this Lodge. He returned to Scotland, but in 1898 he came back to the United States, where he created the "American Masonic Federation." He promoted the sale of all sorts of "Masonic" degrees by mail, and through paid solicitors or salesmen; they were sent out to organize Lodges and grant degrees throughout the United States. (By the way, reduced rates were given for large groups and many joined his special Craft.) In 1915 one of his salesmen was arrested in St. Louis, Missouri, and the postal inspector there decided that it was time to break up the gang. He assigned inspector M.G. Price to the case; he spent two years gathering evidence in the United States and also far off in foreign lands. Judge Wade of the United States District court for Iowa, a non-Mason, presided, and none of the jurors was a Mason. Matthew McBlain Thompson and two others were found guilty of using the U. S. Mails to defraud the public, and were sentenced to serve penitentiary terms of two years and to pay a fine of $5000.00 each. In those days this was a lot of money.

Now, let us look at another American.

In 1847 an American visiting England introduced himself as a Major General George Cooke, LL.D., Chancellor of the University of Ripley. He joined Prince of Wales Lodge, No. 259. He became a devoted supporter of the Masonic Charities, and actually became vice-president of the Girls' School, and a life Governor of the Boys' School and a member of the Benevolent Institution.

The Grand Master conferred on him the rank of Past Grand Warden, and appointed Cooke his personal representative to the Grand Lodge of New York. A fund was started to place his bust in Freemasons' Hall.

Yes, he certainly seems to be the type of man who would become the ultimate Mason, generous, devoted, benevolent, humane and philanthropic, an indisputable humanitarian. Undeniably the type of man the Craft needs.

But after he had returned to the United States it was discovered that Cooke was a medical quack. He was immediately stripped of all his Masonic honours, and all the money that he had contributed to Masonic Charities was returned to him.

Now let me tell you about a mad Englishman.

Joshua Norton was born in England on February 4, 1819. He engaged in a number of business enterprises in Africa, and emigrated to San Francisco in 1849. He immediately entered the real estate business and accumulated considerable wealth. When he tried to corner the rice market, he lost everything. In order to cheer him up, his friends started to call him " Emperor. " On September 15, 1859 he proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States. He donned a blue uniform with brass buttons, epaulets, and a military cap. Instead of sending him off to have his head examined, everyone humored him because of his pleasant and cheerful disposition. He rode the streetcars free, attended theaters without charge, and was supplied with the necessities of life by those around him. When he ran short of cash, he simply drew drafts on his Imperial Treasury. He issued Royal Proclamations that were designed to better the human race. On Sunday he always attended a church. He played no favorites, but visited them all. Merchants and financiers consulted him on business matters and apparently he gave them sound advice on these matters.

So what does this have to do with Masonry? Well, he was a member of Occidental Lodge of San Francisco, and for a time he lived in the Masonic Temple; some of his proclamations emanated from it. When he passed away on January 8, 1880, he was given a Masonic Funeral. Fifty-four years later his grave was moved and a monument was erected over his new grave.

Now to a Scottish Canadian. This is one of my very favorite short but true stories. The story of a man who loved his Lodge, and who (I think) also loved his pocketbook. Miles McGuigan was a member of the 81st Regiment of Loyal Lincoln Volunteers and a member of Merrickville Lodge, No. 55, in St. Lawrence District in Ontario. When he died, it was his last wish that his body be dissected, and then placed in the Merrickville Lodge for future work in the Third Degree. His wishes were carried out, and his bones remained in the Merrickville Lodge until the Lodge Room and building were gutted by fire in 1959.

So Brethren, now let's hope that you have been amused and entertained with these short episodes in the lives of some of our Masonic brethren. No your ordinary run-of-the-mill Masons, that's for sure. Not all ideal role models! But interesting! Believe it or not, this is Masonic Education.

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Education The Route To Our Future

by Richard E. Fletcher MPS

James Smithson endowed the Institution which bears his name with these words "To found an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. "

He also wrote that " every man is a valuable member of society who by his observations, researches, and experiments procures knowledge for men. "

Today the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. stands as a lasting tribute to this man' s vision and to his unwavering belief in the importance of knowledge and education.

To the Masonic Fraternity, knowledge and its quest, is quite simply, the most important thing we do! Make no mistake about it nothing repeat nothing else comes close! Freemasonry and education, which is the accumulation of knowledge, have become so intertwined as to be inseparable.

Historically, Masons have not only stressed the importance of knowledge within our Fraternity but have also been some of its staunchest supporters without!

For example:

1. The oldest Academic Honor Society in this nation was founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was modeled on Freemasonry but in the 1800s, ceased its Secret Rites and became strictly an Academic Honor Society. Today, there is no greater evidence of academic achievement than to wear a Phi Beta Kappa key.

2. There is conclusive historical evidence that at least 100 Lodges in early Texas had the first floor of their Lodge buildings used as Public Schools!

3. One of the greatest Masonic charities is that of scholarships made available to deserving young people in many of our Grand Jurisdictions.

Why are these kinds of commitments important?

Samuel Eliot Morison; Henry Steele Commager, and William E. Leuchtenburg co-authored a book entitled "A Concise History of the American Republic" in which they said:

"America was the first country in modern history where each generation had more education than its forebears an elementary consideration which goes far to explain that child-centered society which puzzled foreign observers. The familiar process of enlarging both the base and the height of the educational pyramid was greatly accelerated in the years after the Second World War. Prosperity, the G.I. Bill of Rights, the urgent demands for expertise all of these combined to give a powerful impetus to education. By 1960 the college occupied about the same position in the educational enterprise as the high school in 1920 and the junior college in 1940. Between 1920 and 1960, the total number of students at institutions of higher education grew from less than 600,000 to 3.6 million, a critical development in the enlargement of the middle class."

It is no overstatement to say that the development of our country was due, in very large part, to a highly educated population.

Yet, sadly, today we graduate from High School students who are functionally illiterate! The trend seems to be turning, but what a boost modern education would receive, to know that the Freemasons support the effort for improvement.

As Lord Brougham once observed:

"Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. "

And as Disraeli told the British House of Commons in 1874:

"Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends. "

Can Freemasonry really make a difference?

You bet it can - Let me give you an example:

Lt. General Robert D. Springer

On September 11, 1987 in the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia, Lt. Gen. Robert Springer was made a Mason-at-Sight. This is a special ceremony only rarely used and then to honor someone whose life has been exemplary.

The background of Gen. Springer is not only of hardship and suffering but also a bit of "Horatio Alger." General Springer spent much of his youth at the Patten Home located in Pennsylvania. This home was sponsored for orphans, by the Freemasons in Pennsylvania.

Needing help, as did so many young people, the Masons provided care and the opportunity for schooling to thousands of these young people over a period of many years.

Gen. Springer used the educational facilities available to build the base for an outstanding life of achievement. From an orphan, with nothing, to Lt. General in the United States Air Force is no small accomplishment. Freemasons can be very proud that at a crucial time in a young man's life they were there to help! Members of our Fraternity never know when or how they will help to shape the life of a young person. But we can be proud in the knowledge that it does happen! From Freemasonry in the community, let's now focus our thoughts on Masonic Education within the Craft. Let's talk about Masonic knowledge both "Unknown" and "Known." First: Unknown; Ignorance and neglect represent our "unknown" knowledge. How many of our Lodges and members have old books, minutes and other papers lying around in closets, boxes, bags, trunks and other similar containers. How many realize what these old books and papers contain? How often do we see these old items turn up in flea markets where the seller doesn't even know what the items mean or are all about? Masonry has no greater enemies that the ones we self-impose: ignorance and neglect! We simply have no excuse for not recognizing our own historical documents and treasures. It would seem to me that the Philalethes Society can continue to play an important role in developing ways in which we can recognize Masonic papers of historical significance. At least to know how to recognize something that might be potentially important.

Secondly: Known

We also have a wealth of "known" material stored in our libraries, museums, Lodge-rooms, and in the minds of many of our members. This "known" knowledge forces us to confront one of Freemasonry's greatest problems! How do we concentrate Masonic knowledge and present it to the Masonic community in useable format? How do we stir interest in our own members to want to share the wealth of information that is available?

Realistically another question must be asked: If we were to double Masonic membership would we have more active members or instead twice as many staying away?

Membership is not our problem. Lack of interest by our present members is our problem! We simply are not challenging the majority of Masons to learn about our Fraternity. Freemasonry has a beautiful heritage of history, quality of thought and sincerity of purpose and it is not being properly communicated. The challenge is to develop ways of turning Masonic knowledge into formats that are of enough interest to be used!

How about recording the thoughts and memories of the "old timer" in every Lodge. Printed material is of great importance but we also need to do more in film and videotape. Film for the larger audience and videotape for the smaller group or one on one training that is so urgently needed! In short, we should be taking more advantage of modern technology.

None of this can happen without people! It is my opinion that no challenge faces the Masonic Fraternity of greater importance than the development of a new generation of Masonic thinkers and writers. Since Robert Burns or Rudyard Kipling who has written poetry about Masonry? Who is the author such as Mark Twain using Masonry in their stories? Who is the Mozart writing music with Masonic overtones? Who in the arts uses Masonic references? Of more recent vintage, we are losing a generation of Masonic writers and thinkers and who are the replacements in sight?

If we as Masons only realized the enormous wealth of talent within our own Fraternity and knew how to harness and channel that talent we would quickly return to the status we once held in our communities. We must not delude ourselves into thinking talent is not available in our Fraternity. It most certainly is.

Our job is to find and use that talent!

Our job is to use the resources available in our Masonic libraries, museums and any other source of stored knowledge we have, to prepare, in useable format, a program of Masonic Education.

Our job is to retrieve lost or ignored records and restore them either into local use or broader repositories of Masonic history.

Our job is to be alert to and advance a new generation of Masonic writers and thinkers.

Our job is to communicate with Grand Lodge about the urgent need for funding Masonic Educational projects.

"Man must seek though he but partly finds

He must build, though it too shall be destroyed

He must live, though he shall surely die

He must strive for memory, though he shall be forgotten

and the deathless words of Solomon

in Ecclesiastics thunder through the ages,

even the vanity of wisdom hard pursued.

Ledmund Parsons from "The Alexandrian Library"

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THE PHILALETHES INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

1991Semi-Annual

Assembly & Feast

September 14, 1991 - Indianapolis, Indiana

HOLIDAY INN NORTH AT THE PYRAMIDS

3850 DEPAUW BWD. INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46268

(317) 872-9790

Featured Speakers: John J. Robinson, author of Born in Blood, expressing his views on the heritage of Freemasonry.

William Whalen, author of Christianity and American Freemasonry, sharing his view that Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity.

Accommodation: Single or double $70.00 per night

Registration: Gentlemen $39.00 Ladies $39.00

Includes Lunch & Dinner

Full Day Agenda includes:

- Assembly Opens 9:00 a.m. /Ladies Program 10:00 a.m.

- Featured speakers John J. Robinson & William Whalen both non-masons

- Panel Discussion, including Allen Roberts and Jerry Marsengill

Please send check or money order by August 14, 1991 to:

Roger VanGorden, P.O. Box 55941, Indianapolis, IN 46220

(Please include name and address of attendees and hotel accommodations)

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The Teutonic Knights

by Roy H. Clemens, MPS

Within the Scottish Rite degrees there is a series (27th through 30th) that is known as the Chivalric Degrees. Among the examples set forth within the teachings of these degrees are the deeds and character of Hermann von Salza, who was at one time the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. Recently John H. Van Gorden devoted one chapter of his book, "Medieval Historical Characters in Masonry," to him and pointed out that he exemplifies the virtue of persuasiveness. This is easy to understand because von Salza was one of the most effective and dynamic of all the Grand Masters of the Order. But who were these Teutonic Knights with whom he was associated? What is their place in history, and what lasting beneficial effect did they have on humanity? And, not to be overlooked; what happened to them as Europe marched inexorably through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, the Reformation, and on through the Age of Enlightenment, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions and into our Modern Age? To answer these questions we must examine their Order of knighthood, how it was organized; how it operated; what it did, or did not, achieve; and what became of it as the years passed. Throughout this process it must be clearly understood that the Teutonic Knights were not Freemasons, nor did they have any direct connection with Freemasonry or its forerunners. The concept is simply that Scottish Rite Masons are encouraged to emulate the finer virtues of the knights of that Order.

While it is true that the Teutonic Knights were initially engaged in, and were a part of, the Christian Crusades in the Holy Land, their principal effect was felt in eastern Europe and along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. The Order was headquartered in the Holy Land until 1291, but its principal efforts and concerns were centered on areas further north. Their aims were tied first to the expansion of German territory and influence and secondly to Christian evangelism.

The eastward expansion of the German Empire, influence and culture undertaken by the Teutonic Knights in the early 13th century is frequently referred to as the Prussian Crusade, and in part the Livonian and Estonian Crusades. While these continued for a slightly longer period than the more popularly known Crusades to the Holy Land, the conquest of the Teutonic Knights closely approximated those fateful efforts in its barbarity, loss of life, political jealousies, economic and political consequences and final outcome. Thousands died, many of them horribly, on both sides. Inordinate suffering, fear and death were the constant companions of both conqueror and conquered. In the end, the goal, the reason that it all occurred slipped away from the German Crusader's grasp and left them to collapse and shrivel slowly, sometimes disgracefully, into a rejected and forlorn shadow of the powerful and glorious Order they had once been. As valiant and sustained as their effort was, neither the Teutonic Knights nor any other power before or after them has been able to retain any of the eastern lands under German sovereignty, or even within its sphere of political influence for any prolonged period of time. True, Christianity came to, and has remained strong, in the Baltic area, but while the Teutonic Knights can rightfully be credited with helping the Christianizing effort it is abundantly clear that Christianity would have come to that area even without their participation. Yet, in the development and management of the land which came under their control, the Ordensstaat, they contributed greatly to the economic and commercial progress of northeast Germany and the south and southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea. Their support in the conversion of the pagan tribes and their development, administration and protection of the Hansa in the wastelands of northeast Europe may well be considered one of the glorious achievements of the Middle Ages, and certainly the most outstanding accomplishment of medieval German civilization. (1)

The Teutonic Knights, as an Order, had its beginning at the siege of Acre in 1190, during the Third Crusade, when the German knights of the Crusade set up a hospital outside the city's wall to care for the sick and wounded. They had started out from Germany under the leadership of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. However, Barbarossa died enroute as the result of an accident and the Germans continued on to Acre under the leadership of his second son, Duke Frederick of Swabia. The knights took part in the siege, which continued for eight months, and when the city finally fell in 1191 it became the new capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The hospital was allocated space within the city's wall so that it could continue its work. In that same year Pope Celestine III confirmed the group as a small and independent Order to be known as the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital of Jerusalem. During the next five years branch hospitals were set up at several places in the Christian controlled areas of the Middle East.

Late in the 1190s the knights met in the house of the Templars and decided that their hospital activities would be patterned after those of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, which was operated by the Knight Hospitallers of St. John. During these same meetings they also decided that the clerical, knightly and other activities would be carried on under the same rules as the Knights Templar. Pope Innocent III approved these decisions on February 19, 1199. And so, the Teutonic Knights came into existence as a Religious Order of Chivalry under its first Grand Master, Heinrich Walport von Bassenheim, a Rhinelander. The Order was headquartered in the Holy Land until the collapse of the Crusades, acquiring during that time a rundown castle thirty miles north of Acre from the Henneberg family, which they developed into the stronghold of Montfort, also known, in German, as Starkenberg, and much other land and power in northern Galilee. In 1271 they lost Montfort, and with the loss of Acre and the shattering of the Crusades in 1291, Grand Master Konrad von Feuchtwangen moved the headquarters to Venice. Later, in 1309, Grand Master Seigfried von Feuchtwangen relocated the headquarters to Marienburg, Prussia where it remained until the Order was forced out by the Treaty of Thorn in 1466. At that time the headquarters was moved to Konigsberg by Grand Master Ludwig von Ehrlichshausen. Shortly after 1561 the Order made the final relocation of its headquarters to what is now Wurttemberg. The Order continued in a shadowy existence until 1923, its last Grand Master being Archduke Eugene, the Commander-in-Chief at Caparetto, a small village at the foot of the Venetian Alps. (2)

The Order's original organization, and the one it retained throughout most of its existence consisted of a high command made up of a Grand Master (Hochmeister), an elected and absolute leader; his lieutenant and next in command, the Grosskomtur, who was in charge of all land administration; followed by the Marshall of the Order (Ordensmarschal), who was in charge of all military operations, the Hospitaller (Spittler), who was in charge of all hospitals and relief work; the Quartermaster-General (Trapier), who was in charge of supplies, and later, trade relations; and the Treasurer (Tresler), who was in charge of the finances. Below this General Staff were the District Commanders, who were in charge of districts consisting of several Commanderies. The Commandery was the smallest unit of the Order, was stationed at a fortress or strong point and consisted of a Commander (Komtur) and twelve knights and their supporting personnel. (3)

Each individual knight had an attendant (knechte), or esquire, who served him personally, cared for his weapons and armor, dressed him for battle but usually did not accompany him into combat. (4) The knight and all his serving brothers took the normal monastic vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. In the fortress monasteries the knights slept in dormitories and ate in the refectory. Discipline was very strict and life was not easy for them. Indeed, they could not have survived had their lifestyle been other than rigorous. We have but to look at the fate of the Roman Legions, the Ottoman Janissaries, the Japanese Samurai, more recently the armies of France and Britain in 1940, even the ultimate fate of the Order to observe the devastating effect of relaxed discipline.

The dress of the knights varied but usually consisted of a shirt and leggings of chain-mail over padded undergarments, over which fitted steel plates of armor were buckled. Over this a white surplice with a black Latin cross in front was worn, the whole being topped by a long white cloak having a black Latin cross on the left shoulder. The head was covered and protected by a fitted metal cap under a hood of chain-mail, or more often, by a full helmet of steel, well padded on the inside and worn over a hood of mail. Arms consisted of a lance and a long two-edged steel sword and, at times, a mace. Their horses were of the large strong work-horse type and they, like the knight, were fitted with plate armor for battle. Armor was worn only for battle and training. Likewise, the large battle horse was clad and ridden only for the same purposes. On the march the armor of the knight and the battle plates of his mount were carried on mules. The knight rode a mule and his war-horse was led unencumbered.

In battle the knight and his mount were always on the move. The main value of the mounted knight was in the charge, where the ferocious shouts, the weight and inertia of the charging horse, the lance, swinging sword or mace took their toll. The constant movement served also to destroy the aim of archers and the dreaded pikes of foot-soldiers, for once the horse was downed, or the knight unseated, death soon followed through spear or dagger thrusts under the edges of the armor plates. In 1240, Alexander Nevsky, a Russian Prince of Novgorod, inflicted the so-called "massacre on the ice" when he lured the charging Teutonic Knights onto ice-covered Lake Peipus. The weight of the huge armored horses carrying the armor clad knights was so great that the ice broke beneath them and the major part of the force died, not by the sword but by drowning. Even in combat with the light cavalry of the Prussians, once the opposing forces were engaged in the deadly embrace of battle, the heavily clad knight had to be protected and extricated from the fray because both the knight and his steed were vulnerable to the greater maneuverability of the light cavalry and the terrible devastation of the violent swordswinging Prussian nobles. (5)

The statutes of the Order, including the penal regulations, were compiled while it was operating in the Middle East. The earliest datable manuscript containing the statutes bears the year 1264. These contain much of the same kind of rules as those followed by the Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller and Dominican friars, whose statutes in turn depended on the regulations concerning religious and temporal life contained in the Rule of St. Benedict and the Rules of St.Augustine. In regard to the penal code, offenses were divided into four types--minor, serious, more serious and most serious. Minor offenses consisted of such things as lying, abusive language, gambling, simple assault by striking with the hand, or consorting with bad women. The penalty was a one to three day penance, much lighter than that of the other Orders. Serious offenses were things such as drunkenness, wastefulness, sending or receiving letters, refusing to carry out orders or collecting alms without permission . The penalty for these crimes was to have one's cross taken away until pardoned by the superior and brethren, and during the meanwhile to live with the slaves, eat with the servants sitting on the ground, fast for three days each week on bread and water and receive discipline from the priest in the chapel every Sunday. The "more serious" offenses were things such as conspiracy against the Master or a superior, thievery, to be found to have property, to sin with a woman, disclose the Order's secrets or appeal against the laws of the Order. The penalty for such crimes was up to the judgment of the superior and brethren and ranged from one years penance; during which the offender lived with the slaves, ate with the servants sitting on the ground, served in a habit without a cross, fasted for three days each week on bread and water and was disciplined by the priest in the chapel each Sunday; to as great a penalty as life imprisonment. The "most serious" offenses were acts such as gaining admission or arranging for someone else to gain admission to the Order by simony or falsehood, fleeing from the standard or the army, deserting to the heathens or cohabiting with men. The penalty for simony and falsehood resulting in membership in the Order was for the guilty brother to be expelled from the Order, but he could regain admission by the grace of the superior and brethren. However, for the crimes of cowardice and the " foul sin" the guilty brother was expelled forever. (6) It is interesting to note that unlike the penalties of many other cultures, except for the chapel discipline no physical torture, abuse, disfigurement or execution penalties are included in the penal code. In order that there be no lack of discipline or lack of adherence to the regulations of the Order, the Grand Master expected each Commander to visit all of his Commanderies at least once every three years and in 1442 Grand Master Konrad von Ehrlichshausen issued a decree making such visits mandatory. This has the flavor of a resurrection, after a period of nearly five hundred years, of the Carolingian "missi dominici," and the use of the more recent practice of visitation by the Cluniac and Cistercian Orders. The wisdom of such visits continues even to this day in the concept that good and proper command, control and management by civil as well as military organizations calls for periodic visits by leaders to the offices factories, institutions or military units for which they are responsible.

Within the Order of Teutonic Knights the knight was the elite warrior. Usually of noble birth, he was one of a number of nobles, younger sons of nobles or even illegitimate sons who, deprived of landed estates had the choice of entering a monastery or serving as a warrior-knight. (7) Normally, noble birth was a prerequisite for advancement in the Order, but the number of actual nobles was always small. More often the knights were descendants of burghers, gentry or ministeriales. (8) Armor, weapons and horses were costly, as was the maintenance of an esquire and other members of a knight's entourage. Consequently, except for those cases of wealthy but not noble families who could provide for an adept, courageous and adventurous son, knights were members of the upper class. (9) The support of a group of knights required the services of lower-born freemen and slaves. Among the freemen were the foot-soldiers and archers, who formed the numerical majority of the fighting force. Their work was to assist in the protection of their knights, to destroy the enemy knight except if that knight was in combat with one of their own knights, and to destroy the foot-soldiers, archers and other fighting assets of the enemy.

In 1209 Hermann von Salza, son of a Thuringian ministeriale, was elected Grand Master. The most dynamic of all the leaders of the Order at a time when it was wealthy and possessed appreciable lands in Palestine, Cilician Armenia, Greece and Europe. Friction had developed between the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights and the struggle for the Holy Land was somewhat abated. Consequently the Teutonic Knights turned their attention to other areas, their purposes being both the spread of Christianity and the development of German dominion over whatever lands they could acquire. As it turned out their major efforts were in northeastern Europe and in the area along the south coast of the Baltic Sea. In 1211, Andrew II, King of Hungary, acting on the suggestion of Count Hermann of Thuringia, an advocate of Hermann von Salza, invited the order to occupy Burzenland in Transylvania, from which they were to protect Hungary from the raids of the Kumans, one of the Mongol tribes under Genghis Khan which was pressing westward out of the Ukraine. Accepting the offer, the Teutonic Knights quickly pacified the Burzenland, built a network of crude forts after which, rather than serve as garrison forces, they began incursions into the Kuman lands. Concurrently they introduced German settlers into the region and attempted to develop the land into an autonomous German monastic State, erecting castles at Marienberg, Swarzenburg, Rosenau and Kreuzburg. In 1224 von Salza persuaded Pope Honorius III to grant certain ecclesiastical exemptions and protections to the area; in effect making Burzenland a papal fief. When Andrew II learned of these moves, and prompted by heavy pressures from his son, Prince Bela, and other nobles, he withdrew the privileges of the Order and ordered them to leave Hungary. When they refused he authorized Prince Bela to remove them by force, and he did. (10)

Shortly thereafter, in 1225, Duke Conrad of Masovia offered the Order the land of Chelmno (Kulm) and the possession of all lands to be conquered in Prussia in exchange for protection against the Prussians (Prusiskai). (11) Von Salza accepted and as protection against treatment such as was received in Hungary negotiated with Pope Honorius III and Frederick II. Frederick viewed this matter from several angles. First he was being strongly pressed by the Pope to embark on his promised Crusade to the Holy Land and he needed the Teutonic Knights as a crucial part of his forces. Secondly, his principal interests of empire lay in the Mediterranean region (Sicily and Italy) and matters in northern Europe did not gain much of his attention. Thirdly, he was aware of the riches of the Near East, which he hoped to tap with his Crusade, but Prussia was a cold, forbidding area lacking in riches, and riches are what he needed to continue his plans for empire in the under-belly of Europe. Additionally, Hermann von Salza was a powerful and respected leader of an Order which he could not afford to antagonize. Further, he was indebted to von Salza for services he had performed in Germany, particularly his work in obtaining the release of the kidnapped King Waldemar II of Denmark. Therefore, in 1226 he issued the "Golden Bull of Rimini" giving Grand Master von Salza, and consequently the Order, full authority as a Prince over the area between Thorn and Chelmno east of the Vistula, and all the land in Prussia that the Teutonic Knights might conquer. This document, called a "Golden" Bull because the seal of Frederick II placed on it was of gold leaf and thus marked it as a document of great significance, was of the lesser known yet most important documents of the Middle Ages. For the first time a German Emperor, with the concurrence of the Roman Catholic Church, gave a person who was not of noble lineage the same status as a prince and permitted him to set up an autonomous State with full powers to develop and govern it. Frederick II's failure to maintain a strong hand in the affairs of an expanding Germany contributed to its political fragmentation and the eventual downfall of the Hohenstaufen empire. The terms of the Golden Bull were:

1. Hermann von Salza was given permission to enter Prussia with his Teutonic Knights and their allies.

2. The Teutonic Knights were given a grant in perpetuity to all the lands received from the Duke of Masovia, and promises to give them all the lands they might conquer in Prussia together with the royal rights in the lands, rivers, swamps, seas, etc. free and immune of any services or tax whatever.

3. Concedes to them the right to try, sentence and punish or condemn criminals; to hear and judge both civil and criminal cases.

4. Concedes to them all natural resources in the regions they conquer together with rights of establishing laws, establishing markets, coining money, travel and raising taxes.

5. Grants the Grand Master and his successors the same rights and jurisdictions in their lands as other princes in the empire.

6. Prohibitions and penalties for violation of the grants.

The Golden Bull was witnessed by Albert of Kaefernburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg. Also present at the signing were Count Henry von Salza; Albert, Duke of Saxony, the nominal overlord of the Swordbrothers; and the Count of Arnstein who later, in 1240, joined the Teutonic Order. (12)

Von Salza immediately dispatched Hermann Balke, the "Pizarro of the Baltic," with a force of seven knights to cross the Vistula. After the crossing Balke stormed the Prussian stronghold at Nessau, "hanging the chieftain from his own sacred oak." (13)

The Prussians were a pagan people of Lettish race who lived in the area from the Baltic Sea inland to the border of Masovia, between the Vistula and Pregel Rivers. They were divided into eleven separate tribes, each under a different chief and normally lived in stockaded ring-villages. They engaged in fishing, small farming, bee-keeping, cattle-raising and hunting. Their clothing was made up of linen, leather and furs; their buildings were largely of wood; and their tools and weapons were of hardwood coupled with bone, and in some cases iron or steel when it could be obtained through trade or other means. Their religion was simple and related to nature, with shamans, or priests, and temples usually set in sacred groves. They were satisfied with their way of life and fiercely resisted all intruders. They had developed a highly mobile light cavalry and their sword-wielding leaders and warriors were both fearsome and fearless. But there was no national unity and leadership. The arrangement was more like that of the appanages of early Russia where alliances were, or were not, formed according to the leaders perception of the threat. The land itself, Prussia, was, in the coastal areas, a maze of dunes, salt marshes and meandering rivers, while inland it rose slightly to accommodate rolling plains, forests and numerous swamps and fresh water marshes. There were very few hills and even the highest of these was less than 600 feet in elevation. These are the people and this was the forbidding land which the Order sought to conquer. (14)

After neutralizing Nessau, Balke continued his campaign and built castles at Thorn in 1231, at Chelmno (Kulm) in 1232 and further down the Vistula at Marienwerder in 1233. (15) In the fall of 1233, with the help of Polish forces the knights further decimated the Prussians and built the stronghold of Burg Rheden upriver from Marienwerder. Later, in 1237, Count Henry of Meissen built a fort (Elbing) on an Island in the Elbing River. The Order thus possessed a string of strongholds stretching from Masovia to the Baltic Sea, from which they could proceed with their conquest.

In 1228, at Thorn and Chelmno, the first German Burghers moved in and one of the first sovereign acts of the Teutonic Knights was to grant them a charter of self-government which was based on the law of Magdeburg. The colonization and commercial development of Prussia by the Germans had begun.

Also in 1228, Duke Conrad of Masovia formed a crusading group which was dubbed the Knights of Dobrzyn. Seven years later they petitioned for and were assimilated into the Order of the Teutonic Knights. (16)

In the latter part of the 12th century large numbers of Germans and Dutch from Utrecht, Westphalia and Frisia were transported to the Slavic lands bordering on the Baltic Sea. There they set about improving the land, building dikes, draining swamps and generally establishing a growing economy. There were, among these people, crusaders, merchants, clerics and artisans as well as the farmers and herdsmen, all of whom were welcomed by the Slavic Princes. They settled in lands ranging from the mouth of the Dvina River to the upper reaches of what is now Estonia. The entire region came to be known as Livonia and was inhabited by tribes such as the Livs, Letts and Esths. The pacification and assimilation of these tribes is indeed another chapter in the Crusades along the Baltic. It is mentioned here to show that a large German population had entered into this land and had formed it into an economic and political entity known as Livonia. These people endured incursions from the Poles, Lithuanians and Russians, and it was inevitable that they should become acquainted with the Teutonic Knights. This acquaintance came about in 1237 when the Sword: Brethren (Schwertbruder), an Order of Christian Knights formed in 1204 to protect the German population of Livonia, were almost annihilated by the Lithuanians. Their remnants were absorbed by the Teutonic Knights who then took up the task of pacifying Estonia, Kurland and Livonia. (l7) Following this the Order made a tragic incursion into Russia and in 1240 on the ice of Lake Peipus they suffered disastrous losses at the hands of Alexander Nevsky the Russian Prince of Novgorod.

The Order then turned southward along the Baltic coast, reaching Memel in 1252 and moving inward to Samland in 1254. Here, together with an army of Bohemians, Moravians and Bavarians led by King Ottokar II of Bohemia and an army of crusaders from Saxony, Meissen and Magdeburg led by Duke Otto of Brandenberg, the Order defeated the Sambians with little difficulty. In 1255, with the help of native warriors, they built the great castle on the heights overlooking the Pregel River, which they named Konigsberg in honor of King Ottokar II.

In 1260 a revolt broke out in eastern Livonia following a serious defeat of the Teutonic Knights by the Lithuanians at Durben in Kurland. This precipitated a further widespread and violent revolt by a coalition of native Prussian leaders and the Order suffered further heavy losses. A new Crusade of knights into the area was led by a succession of nobles; Duke Albert I of Braunsweig, Landgrave Albert of Thuringia; Margrave Otto of Brandenberg; King Ottokar II of Bohemia and Margrave Dietrich of Lansburg. By 1248 they had annihilated or driven out the bulk of the rebels and devastated more than one half of Prussia. The papacy, by the Treaty of Christburg in 1249, had placed limits on the extent to which the Order could go in subjugating and converting the Prussians. It mandated that all free members of the Prussian tribes that accepted Christianity could marry, bequeath property, trade, seek litigation, enter the Church, become knights and could be disinherited only by due process of law.(18) However, after the retaliatory measures of the 1264-1284 period the Order felt no longer obliged to adhere to the Treaty provisions. The original plans for a State under the sovereignty of the Order (Ordensstaat) could now proceed. This was the period of the interregnum in Germany. The German Emperors had first neglected the lands north of the Alps for the pleasures of Italy and Sicily, then over a period of a few years shed their kingly responsibilities and vested many of their rights and authorities in the provincial princes. The papacy, faced with its troubles with the German Emperors and Italian nobles, was no longer capable of exerting the authority expected of it, especially in this wild country in far northeastern Europe. The Golden Bull of Rimini had given the Grand Master the rights of a Prince of the empire and the time was at hand to assert that right. Grand Master Burchard von Schwanden proceeded to do so.

Heretofore such colonization as there was in the Prussia/Livonia area was limited to German nobles, bourgeois colonists, burghers and church people. Now, however, the Order began in earnest to bring in peasants from Silesia, Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Meissen and the Elbe/Saale area to populate and develop Prussia. Within a matter of a few years they had established fourteen hundred villages and the area had a total population of around 15,000 people. This was a planned move by the Order as a part of the program to develop the Ordensstaat. It systematically developed Prussia using the services of "locators" to bring in settlers and provide them with lands on a uniform, well-planned basis. The plan called for the establishing of towns which served as stabilizing centers for economic development. Each town was associated with the economic regimen adjacent to it, served as a protective enclave and was the center of the local legal system. Each, in turn, maintained economic, political and legal liaison with others adjacent to it so the laws of the entire developed State were interconnected, supportive and functional in the preservation of a sense of solidarity. (19)

In the meanwhile, the Order, having once secured Prussia, moved westward and seized eastern Pomerania. In 1291 the Crusaders, including the Teutonic Knights, lost the city of Acre and were driven from the Holy Land. Grand Master Konrad von Feuchtwangen relocated the Order' s headquarters to Venice and in 1309 Grand Master Seigfried von Feuchtwangen relocated it to Marienburg. From this headquarters the administration of the Ordensstaat was carried on. The Order expanded its organization to include Advocates (Vogte), who governed Commanderies without convents, two Chief Agents (GrossSchaffer), one at Marienburg and one at Konigsberg, who were in charge of all trading activities, a Master of the Mint and Directors of Posts. (20)

The Ordensstaat exported large quantities of grain and rye, and developed a monopoly in amber. In addition to controlling the trading operations the Order employed its monetary surplus in banking operations. By now it became not only a military, political and religious organization. it also became an economic power. Taxes were levied on land but they were not oppressive, and the Order possessed corporate rights over mines, waters, forests, hunting, fishing and many other activities, drawing much revenue from them. Moreover, the Order possessed huge numbers of horses, cattle, sheep and swine. Exportation of wool was forbidden; it was consigned to the manufacturing of cloth. In addition to the staple grains; furs, potash, wax, tallow and honey were produced in ample amounts to provide a basis for trade. As this era of commodity surplus and trading developed, so did the problem of commerce create the need for the Order to seek papal approval to engage in it. In 1263 Pope Urban IV authorized the Order to engage in commerce to obtain needed commodities but not to engage in such activity for profit. This, however, was not in consonance with the Order's plans and they devised means to circumvent it. The Gross-Schaffers were supplemented by lesser agents (Kleinschaffer), who were stationed in each important town with a staff of various lesser employees (Knechte). At locations abroad local agents (Lieger) were assigned. In the early 14th century the larger cities of Prussia and Livonia (the Ordensstaat) became members of the Hansa, the huge German trading cartel in the Baltic. Those which comprised the Prussian, or Livonian Circle of the Hansa were Danzig, Elbing, Konigsberg, Thorn, Libau, Riga, Reval, Pskov, Dorpat and Wisby on the Baltic island of Gotland.2l In 1379 the Order formally joined the Hansa and trade was carried on in varying degrees with all the northern European countries and Spain. However, some of the Grand Masters engaged in independent trading and this created problems in the years to come. (22) Commerce, and the wealth it brought, attached itself to the Order like a giant leech, slowly but surely sapping its moral strength, and becoming one of the major causes of its downfall.

At the same time that the Order was engaged in its commercialism it was not without concern for the aesthetic qualities of life. Under Grand Master Luther von Braunsweig, in 1331 Marienberg had acquired considerable recognition as a center for music, attracting musicians from all over Germany. Later, under Grand Master Winrich von Kniprode, from 1351 to 1382, the city was the site of many new and uniquely original architectural forms. The Order reached its crowning point under von Kniprode, a Rhinelander, who was not only brave and cheerful but also cared for his subjects and sincerely loved Prussia. The knights, mostly Rhinelanders, having fought their hardest battles, having created the beloved Ordensstaat, turned their thoughts toward culture and monastic activities. One, an obscure chaplain, wrote the "Theologiaca Germanica," which would have significant effect on a later German, Martin Luther.(23)

By the beginning of the 14th century the Ordensstaat had reached the limits to which it was to expand and throughout that century the knights fought off assaults by, and carried out summer campaigns against, the Lithuanians and Poles in what has been described as the most savage and pitiless of the medieval wars. The seizure of Danzig (Gdansk) by the Order in 1331 had cut the Poles off from the Baltic Sea, an act that could not be tolerated by Poland. This was the area that was to create problems for the next six hundred years. As recently as 1939 the issue of the Polish Corridor, Poland's access to the Baltic Sea, centered on Danzig, created a serious issue between Germany's Third Reich and Poland. In Livonia the knights, who were mainly Westphalians, although bound by duty and oath to a benevolent Grand Master, needed to maintain a stricter attitude toward the inhabitants than was necessary in Prussia. In 1346 the Landmeister of Livonia ruthlessly and completely exterminated two entire provinces in the peasant uprising of that year. To the discredit of the Order there were many local Commanders of the Order who were unusually abusive. Such was the case of the Commander at Thorn in 1349, Johann Nothaft, an arrogant Bavarian aristocrat. In the matter of the collection of taxes that year he told the townspeople that "when he wanted them to come to him they must go or he would send two or three servants to get them. If they were killed, he would send two or three brothers. And, by God, he said, if they were killed, he would send something that their grandchildren would cry over." (24) In 1386 Poland and Lithuania were united when the twelve-year-old Queen of Poland, Jadwiga, married Jagiello, King of Lithuania, concurrently with his becoming a Roman Catholic. As a result Jagiello became King of Poland as well as Lithuania. In 1410 he set about making a series of formal complaints against the Order of Teutonic Knights, but he got no support in western Europe. Undaunted, he gathered a coalition of Poles, Letts, Lithuanians and Russians, marched against the Order and decisively defeated them in a great battle near Tannenburg. The Grand Master, Ulrich von Juningen, and most of the Order's other leaders were killed in the fighting. From this defeat the Order never really recovered. (25)

Internal intrigue now fractured the Order and decay began to set in. It suffered a second defeat by the Poles in 1435, the herring fisheries failed, the Hansa declined, plague and famine stalked the land, and there was an agrarian crisis in which labor costs soared and land values dropped drastically. (26) The Order was in disarray and declining. No longer were their white mantles with their black cross the symbol of a heroic and chivalrous Christian Order, no longer an emblem of the protector. Time was passing them by, their culture had run its course, there were no more pagan Prussians to convert, there were no more glorious Crusades, recruits and replacements for the aging knights dwindled and the Order found its wealth draining away and its authority questioned. The Order had alienated the Hansa, through its restrictive policies had lost the support of the growing middle class and was increasingly despised by the peasants for their continued hold on the land and their ever-increasing taxes.

In 1454 the nobles of Chelmno (Kulm) formed a "Prussian Union" (Prussische Bund) and, supported by the Emperor of Germany and Pope Nicholas V, and in alliance with KingCasimir IV of Poland, rebelled against the Order. The war that followed lasted thirteen years and saw the employment of mercenary troops, many of whom were Czechs. Czech mutineers seized Marienberg, forcing Grand Master Ludwig von Ehrlichshausen to flee, leaving the Spittler, Heinrich Reuss von Platen to carry on. He inflicted some defeats on the Poles but finally the finances of the Order were exhausted and he sued for peace. By the Treaty of Thorn in 1466 the Order ceded West Prussia to Poland and relocated its headquarters to Konigsberg.

In 1498 the Order moved to improve its wealth and prestige by electing Duke Frederick of Saxony as Grand Master. In 1512 the first Hohenzollern Grand Master, Margrave Albert of Brandenberg-Anspach was elected. He conducted an unsuccessful war with Poland from 1517 to 1521, and in 1525 saw a solution to his predicament in the growing movement of Martin Luther. By embracing Lutheran Prostestantism he divested himself of papal control, secularized the Order of Teutonic Knights and converted Prussia to a hereditary fief under the suzerainty of King Sigismund of Poland; obtained for himself the title of Duke of Prussia. (27) The Order which had begun as a militant religious Order, sanctioned and blessed by the Papacy in 1191, had now run its course. The Ordensstaat was broken beyond repair, Prussia was secularized and had become a Polish duchy. In Livonia the Order under Provincial Master Walter von Plettenberg smashed one of Ivan III's armies on the Seritsa River in 1501 and arranged a fifty year truce with the Russians. The last victory of the Order in Livonia was won by a local Commander, Caspar von Oldenbock, who with a force of 2,000 men drove off a force of 30,000 Russians at Wittenstein in 1561 . The last Provincial Master, Gottard von Kettler, repelled an attempt by Ivan Grozny (Ivan IV, the Terrible) of Russia to seize Livonia, but later the entire province fractured under the assault of the Danes, Swedes and Russians . The island of Osel went to Denmark, northwest Estonia and the island of Dago went to Sweden, southeastern Livonia and the city of Dorpat went to Russia and the balance fell to Poland.

In 1591 von Kettler was permitted to combine Kurland and Samland into a secular duchy, later known as Courland, which he governed as a Polish fief. (28) A fragment of the Order continued to exist until 1697 when it fought the Turks, particularly during the siege of Vienna in 1683. (29) In 1809 it was dissolved by Napoleon but was reestablished thirty years later by Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. It continued as an Order but with no significant military function until 1923 when Pope Pius XI confirmed it as the purely clerical Marian Order, which continues its work to this day.

The memory of the Order of Teutonic Knights has lingered with the German people into the 20th Century. The mighty war-cry of the Teutonic Knights, "Gott Mit Uns," found its way to the belt buckle of the German soldier of World War I and the proud symbol of the Order has been perpetuated in the form of the German military decoration for valor in battle, the Iron Cross, a black Latin Cross edged in white.

In examining the types and sequences of events encountered by the Order of Teutonic Knights, and in some cases manufactured by its behavior, we find the usual pattern of origin, organization, struggle, success, arrogance, stubbornness, deterioration and demise. Historical events, strangely enough, seem to lead the way through the sequence. The Crusades in the Holy Land served to create the circumstances leading to the founding of the Order and its original noble concepts. The seemingly justifiable moves, first into Hungary and later into the Baltic area, were in consonance with their perception of their mission as protectors of Christianity in Hungary and both protectors and militant evangelists in the Baltic lands. Turned loose by the Papacy and a calculative German Emperor they embarked on a mission of subjugation which was more self-serving than nationalistic or religious. Von Salza and each of the Grand Masters who followed him were well aware of Frederick II's attitude toward Germany and the northern lands. They were continually aware of, and did themselves participate in, the decline and collapse of the power of the German throne eastward from the Rhine and north of the Alps. Their conquests took them further and further north and east of the seat of German power, whether it be south of the Alps, Swabia, Bavaria, Luxembourg or Aachen; and from papal authority whether it be at Rome or Avignon. And finally, with the collapse of the Crusades to the Holy Land, the rise of the middle class, and the introduction of gunpowder and cannon the glorious days of the knight came to an end. The knights of the Order died in battle, from disease or old age, and suddenly there were no suitable recruits to fill the ranks. At this point the Order doomed itself, for it turned to mercenaries and as it did so its spirit, its reason to exist, its grand, noble and glorious tradition, its wealth and culture began to rapidly disappear. Those leaders who remained made valiant but futile efforts to save the Order but it was of no avail.

Yet to this Order with its original dedication to the Ordensstaat, it is fitting to recognize their work in developing the lands they conquered, in participating in the Christianization and economic development of those lands. Surely, history would have been much different without them and who in this 20th century can say that our world is any the worse for their sometimes ruthless, sometimes enlightened presence in Livonia, Samland, Kurland and Prussia.

Without central authority in Germany there was no one to come to the aid of the Order during the period preceding and following the massive defeat at Tannenberg. It is difficult to fault the Princes of western Germany because France was rattling its sabre and in 1444 the French army moved against Lorraine and Alsace in the initial assault by France against the western borders of Germany. In effect the entire German empire began to crumble at the same time as the Order entered its slide into oblivion. The weakness and irresponsibility of Germany's rulers since the time of Frederick Barbarossa's death finally brought Germany into the maw of disaster and disintegration. It would be another four hundred years before she again raised her head in pride as a united nation under the Prussian aristocrat, Otto von Bismarck.

The Teutonic Knights and their Order are gone, never to rise again. Our journey through the history of the Order has revealed to us once more the consistent pattern of rise and fall that seems to naturally pervade all of mankind's attempts. And, in this there is a lesson for us, that we take every possible countermeasure to break away from this pattern. In addition to the lessons of diligence duty, honor, and the benefits of progress we must also take into consideration the dangers of corruption evolving out of amassing of great wealth and power for they breed arrogance and the deterioration of moral fiber. As we continue our efforts daily it is important that we keep these lessons, as well as those others that we learn as Freemasons, clearly in mind.

Footnotes

1. J.B. Bury, Thc Cambridge Medical History, Vol VII, Chap. IX (Cambridge: The University Press, 1949), p.268.

2. Desmond Seward, "The Teutonic Knights " History Today, Vol . XX, No. 12, December 1970 p. 866.

3. Ibid., p. 860.

4. Indrikis Sterns, "Crime and Punishment Among the Teutonic Knights," Speculum, Vol 57, January 1982, p. 86.

5. William Urban, The Prussian Crusade, University Press of America, Lanham, Md., 1980, p 71

6. Indrikis Sterns, "Crime and Punishment Among the Teutonic Knights," Speculum, Vol 57, No. l, January 1982, pp. 89-91.

7. Richard Barber, The Reign of Chivalry, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1980, p. 158

8. William Urban, The Prussian Crusade, University Press of America, Lanham, Md., 1980, p. 32.

9. Israel S. Clare Library of Universal History, Vol IV, R.S. Pealei J.A. Hill, New York, 1898, p.

10. William Urban, The Prussian Crusade University Press of America, Lanham, Md., i 980, pp 40-43.

11. J.B. Bury, The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol VII, Chap. IX, (Cambridge: The University Press, 1949) p. 253.

12. William Urban, The Prussian Crusade University Press of America, Lanham Md. i980 pp 91-93

13. Desmond Seward "The Teutonic Knights, " History 70day, Vol. XX, No. 12, December 1970 p. 860.

14. James W. Thompson, Economic and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages, (New York Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1965) p 180

15. J.B. Bury, The Cambridge Medical History, Vol. VII, Chap. IX, (Cambridge: The University Press, 1949), p. 254.

16. Kenneth M. Setton, Gen. Ed., A History of the Crusades, Vol. 111, (Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 570.

17. Francis Dvornik, The Slaus in European History and Civilization, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1962), p. 14

18. Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980) p. 201

19. Geoffrey Barraclough, The Origins of Modern Germany, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984), pp.

20. Kenneth M. Setton, Gen. Ed., A History of the Crusades, Vol. III, (Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 578.

21. James W. Thompson, Economic and Social History of Europe in the Late Middle Ages, (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1931), p. 158.

22. Ibid., p. 189.

23. Desmond Seward, "The Teutonic Knights " History Today Vol XX # 12 Dec. 1970 P. 863

24. Michael Burleigh, Prussian Society and thc German Order, (New York: Cambridge University Press

25. Desmond Seward, "The Teutonic Knights," History Today, Vol XX, No 12 December 1970, p. 864

26. Ibid.

27. Kenneth M. Setton, Gen. Ed., A History of the Crusades, Vol. III, (Madison, Wis. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 584

28. Ibid., pp. 584-585.

29. Richard Barber, The Reign of Chivalry, (New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1984.

Footnotes

Burleigh, Michael, Prussian Society and the German Order New York: Cambridge University Press 1 984.

Bury, J.B., The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. VII, Cambridge: The University Press, 1949.

Christiansen, Eric, The Northern Crusade, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980.

Clare, Israel S., Library of Universal History, Vol. IV, New York: R.S. Peale/J.A. Hill, 1898.

Dvornik, Francis, The Slaus In European History and Civilization, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1962.

Setton, Kenneth M., Gen Ed., A History of the Crusades, Vol. III, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1962.

Seward, Desmond, "The Teutonic Knights," History Today, Vol. XX, No. 12, December 1970.

Sterns, Indrikis, "Crime and Punishment Among the Teutonic Knights," Speculum, Vol. 57, No. 1, January 1982.

Thompson, James W., Economic and Social History of Europe in the Late Middle Ages New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., i93 1 .

Urban, William, The Prussian Crusade, Lanham Md.: University Press of America, 1980.

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Some Thoughts About Leadership

In Craft (Symbolic) Masonry

by Herman Nickerson Jr., FPS

PURPOSE: To make good men better so that they are examples of the Brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of God

We are all friends and brothers, ritually speaking, and by our obligations, actually. We start as friends or fellows and earn our way in Masonry, whose lessons are taught by degrees only. We assume leadership roles as we demonstrate our ability to fill such roles. So, from friends and fellows come our leaders: from fellowship comes leadership. Thus we have those who lead and those who follow.

The leadership question is, "how do we develop leaders?" How do we develop followers with the essential esprit de corps which makes leadership a pleasant and rewarding experience? Our ingredients are followers and leaders, and when these two are in amity and esprit de corps is present, the "followership" makes the leadership a success.

The leader must have an upright character; he must be respected at home, in the community and in church. He must have integrity and his word is his bond. In brief, he must have strength of character.

Leaders reach out and touch followers, and the degree of influence a leader exerts varies with his or her personality and responsibility. The followers, in their turn, influence others; thus we establish a chain reaction--a chain of good men seeking other good men. The leader is always mindful of the needs of others. The needs of his people, be it a small group or large, are of utmost importance. Understanding others is one of the keys to leadership. George Washington, a man of strong character and great responsibility, is an example of true leadership, in that his stature was so commanding that his followers made him the unanimous choice to lead our new Nation as its first president. We know he was a Mason whose example we should emulate.

Ambition is also an essential quality because the leader must lead with the confidence that he can attain the common goal. Enthusiasm must be apparent and the leader must give himself wholly to the cause; he must not seek to satisfy his own vanity and achieve personal advantage. It is truly remarkable what can be accomplished when you don't care who gets the credit.

The leader must be a planner. He must look ahead and carefully plot the moves necessary to achieve the goal. When followers fail to participate, the leader has lost, or perhaps never had, his "followership." This failure to participate could well be the result of an unattractive, unchallenging plan. Make no mistake, followers are equally as important as leaders for the success of the plan.

There is no need to ingratiate yourself or placate all the different points of view in your Lodge, but you must sample the memberships' opinions and needs. It is a truism that you first state clearly the objective, because by so doing you are defining the direction to proceed and the limits of the same. Without these guidelines of directions and limits, you spin your wheels uselessly and go off on tangents. Stick to your objectives leading to your purpose of making good men better.

Let me turn to the example of the common three-legged stool. Symbolically, this stool has the leg of ritual to demonstrate order and impart useful lessons; the leg of administration, to communicate the word, collect the dues, maintain the records, pay the bills and be the Masonic point of contact; and the leg of education to arouse new interest and enthusiasm in the craft. As to the leg of education, I suggest this education begins after the newly made Master Mason has learned his catechism and has had the benefit of learned coaches and instructors who have answered factually all his questions. The leg of education continues to build on his knowledge to make him a true seeker of light.

We all recognize that knowledge is power. We have our leader-trainer on the road, but we need to help him learn all he can about Freemasonry so that his followers will recognize him as one who knows and therefore is someone they want to follow. Remember that those who ignore the hard lessons of history are the ones who repeat them. Don't reinvent the wheel by repeating past errors.

The Brother's potential for leadership is measured by his willingness and ability to contribute to the improvement of our Brotherhood. We have the obligation of continuing to challenge him with tasks that build on his strengths. We have a leader in the making. We have a follower on the road to leadership.

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Letters To The Editor

Full of sound and fury

A column wherein our gentil readeres shake a lance at ignorance, at one another, at ye olde editor and on rare occasions even succeed in hittinge ye naile on ye heade.

Dear Brother Marsengill:

I am an American citizen, but a British Freemason. Therefore, my view point may be a little different from many of your readers.

In my forty years of Masonic travel, I have cut across lines of bigotry which should not be part of the Freemasonry ethic. I remember when the membership criteria was "free, white and 21." I received my degrees at age nineteen. Since then I heard that the word "white" was dropped as somewhere it was said that Freemasonry was meant to unite men of "every clime," etc. which should have meant that a man should be acceptable regardless of race, creed, etc. as long as he believes in a Supreme Being.

Some jurisdictions still have a problem as to the meaning of being "free-born. " This, of course, means some one not born to a slave or indentured servant. Such a situation ceased to exist in the United States over a hundred years ago and in most of the rest of the world, with a few exceptions, several years before.

The reasons why Prince Hall Masons have not been recognized by the " other" Brethren dates back to the days of the American War for Independence and had nothing to do with race as Brother Prince Hall was "free-born" and a regularly-made Mason of a British military Lodge.

It is encouraging to note that the estranged American black brethren are finally being recognized as existing. All of the Grand Jurisdictions of the United States have been legally recognizing regular "black Lodges" since their (US Lodges) inception, whether they admit it or not. It is the membership they object to.

American Freemasons, generally speaking, do not understand that universal Masonry is made up of a large percentage of "not-whites. " Consult Brother Rudyard Kipling's description of his Lodge in India. Not only were there "non-whites" present, but they were "non-Christians" as well.

If an individual Mason has difficulty relating to non-whites that is his prerogative, but his opinions do not reflect the "real world." This unfortunate brother should be cautioned not to visit ANY regular Lodge outside his own Grand Jurisdiction. He may meet up with Brethren not to his liking and will be asked to leave rather than disrupt the proceedings of that " foreign Lodge. "

To save further embarrassment of inadvertently attending a clandestine Lodge while on vacation or business overseas, I would suggest that the book "List of Lodges, Masonic" be referred to. This book is or should be in the possession the Lodge Secretaries and/or Tylers as it is the standard reference for checking a visiting brother's Lodge. Check the end of the appropriate Grand Lodge listing for those Grand Lodges not recognized. This book is updated annually and so should be checked frequently. For example, in 1989, my Grand Lodge recognized the Grand Lodges in Spain and Taiwan. In 1990, they recognized Italy.

Some regular "non-white" Lodges I know of exist in the Bahamas, West Indies and Bermuda. The nearest clandestine Lodges outside of the US are located in Mexico. However, the recognition of these latter Lodges varies from state to state. Check "the Book."

Yours in the Craft,

Paul R. Holmberg, MPS

Dear Brother Hilliard:

Below, you will find a comment on your editorial in the President's Corner. I am sending a copy of this letter to Brother Marsengill and Brother Nocas.

Your editorial in Volume XLIV of April 1991 of The Philalethes seems to me to be mostly feelings, to which you are entitled, but lacking in facts. I do not want further to hurt you any more than I want to injure John Nocas for whom I have great respect.

The York Rite may be doomed. At least it is shrinking. But so is all American Freemasonry. I think it is important that we examine the parts of Masonry which are apparently surviving, and try to discern the reasons for this and the differences.

I have worked with the Grand Lodge of California since the time we got up our courage to face the problem(s). None of us will pretend to have the solution(s), but we have mounted a project of search and correction, some of which has been adopted by the Grand Lodge. We, among other Grand Lodges, have taken steps, initial ones, to correct some of our problems. Our worst problem, we are agreed, is that we are losing about 50% of our candidates. Why? There may be two answers: l) the time required, and 2) most of our jurisdictions do not recognize our candidates as members until they are raised, thus losing their participation while they are still anxious to become members. Both of these questions/problems are unresolved.

Or look at the jurisdictions which are more successful. From a paper in the United Masters Lodge of Auckland, NZ, quoting a practice of the United Grand Lodge of England: "A Lodge under the United Grand Lodge of England may work any ritual it pleases so long as it is not inconsistent with the Ancient Landmarks and the general laws and regulations of the Craft. The form of ritual and ceremonial is decided by resolution of the Lodge in the same way as any other procedural matter. A Lodge holding charter from the Grand Lodge of New Zealand is bound to use the form of working from time to time approved by the Grand Lodge, if its Charter was issued after 16 May 1912. Lodges formed before that date have two options, to use the method and mode of working customary in the Lodge at that date, or to use the approved form. It cannot modify its old customs. It abides by the original form, or adopts the approved one. " You are, of course, aware that under the Grand Lodge of England there is more than one approved working.

And, quoting Ralph Herbold in the Fraternal Review of the Southern California Research Lodge: " Finally, all men need relaxation and social life. Why did Masonry prosper in the fifties and sixties? Surely because men enjoyed their Masonry, and spoke enthusiastically about it so that others wanted to join. Let us bring the fun back into Masonry. Let us enjoy the present time, without looking over our shoulders at a vanished past, or dreading a future which may never come. If we learn to make our gatherings pleasant and enjoyable social occasions, which we remember and talk about with pleasure, it is just possible that the world will once more seek to join us, because it is good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity."

I don't put these suggestions forward as THE solutions, but with their history it may be that they have some weight. And it may be that the Past Grand High Priest of California, Most Excellent John R. Nocas' ideas can help the survival of York Rite Masonry. But, as stated above, this is not only a York Rite problem. Nor is it to be solved by closing our eyes and ears. We must, as Brethren, attempt to find what will work. Or we may find that we have lost what we most desire to save and build.

Sincerely,

W.F. Poynter

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The Importance of the Preservation of Masonic Vocabulary

by Rex R. Hutchens, MPS

It should be said at the outset that this article is motivated by the presence of Brother Henderson's article on Masonic vocabulary in the April, 1991 Philalethes magazine (pp. 14-15 and 19).

It is indisputable that Freemasonry is a part of our society and, as such, changes are indispensable to its survival. The question is, of course, what to change and when? I have long noted the desire of Masons (should I have said "Freemasons?") to improve Freemasonry by responding to criticism from the outside. They seek to stifle criticism by suggesting something be changed so that the offensive element is removed. Certainly the United Grand Lodge of England was motivated to drop the physical penalties from their obligations by the objections of the Anglican Church. I would suggest, however, that such activity is futile and ultimately destructive. I wonder how many English Masons have been made just because the physical penalties were removed. The objections to them came, not from those asked to take them, but from those who were not asked.

The detractors of Freemasonry are not necessarily confused individuals who misunderstood our purpose and our mission. Those who accuse us of being a religion do not always believe that we are. The detractors of the Craft wish to destroy it, not change it. Thus piteous attempts to mollify them by relatively slight changes in vocabulary will only encourage them that we are capable of being influenced by their objections.

Brother Henderson's premise comes at the end of the article rather than the beginning: "we have the bounden duty to change our practices and terminology that offend! We have absolutely no right to dictate to non-Freemasons that they are wrong in their perceived definitions of words. " He seems to be saying that the presence of archaic terminology in Masonic ritual constitutes a form of dictation to the profane (oops, non-Freemasons) as to what words ought to mean to them. Such an assertion is absurd on its face. Our ritual is a function of our history and not an attempt to get anyone to accept anything that offends them.

In order to understand the significance of Mr. Henderson's suggestion that we make Masonic (oops, Freemasonic) terminology more understandable to "the uninitiated," we must examine his criticisms as he gave them: one term at a time.

The first objection is to the word 'profane.' This objection is not without merit. Certainly most people would object to such a label and Freemasons should be particularly cautious in using such a term in a public context without the opportunity to explain it. It may well be that many people are not "students of the dictionary" but I see no reason to encourage their ignorance by reducing our elegant vocabulary to the lowest common denominator. We would better serve such people by encouraging them instead to use the dictionary, lest their ignorance inflict them forever.

As for the term 'Masonry,' it is no improvement to tell someone who doesn't know who a Mason is, that he is a 'Freemason.' It is not known for certain where the term 'Freemason' came from but if the operative origin is considered then a 'freemason' worked in free stone (that is, stone taken from the quarry). How relating our Fraternity to one operative craft word rather than another clears anything up is a mystery to me. As for the possibility of someone associating Masonry to Christianity or Scientology being prevented by adding the prefix Free-, I don't understand it.

The point about "The Holy Bible" is well taken and most certainly the term "Volume of the Sacred Law" should be used. In the Arizona ritual it is erroneously asserted that all regular Masons have been obligated on the Holy Bible. Such nonsense should be dispensed with forthwith, but anyone who has attempted to get a change in ritual passed at a Grand Lodge Communication knows full well the lack of importance truth has to the great majority of our members. However, it is not true that " The Fraternity of Freemasons could go a long way toward defusing its religious critics if we would return to the constant use of the phrase 'The Sacred Book of the Divine Law' . . . " The major criticism of religious fanatics is not that the Bible is allowed on the altar of a Masonic Lodge but that other Holy Books are allowed as well. This criticism would only be emphasized were a more general term used; not that I care what they think anyway. The primary objection is that Christians sit in Lodge (at least potentially) with men of other faiths and that they call such men 'Brother.' The accusation is that such constitutes a violation of the edict of St. Paul to not be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers . " This problem would not go away by changing the name of the Book upon the altar.

As for the term 'altar, ' that is what it is. To call it anything else would be pointless and counterproductive. I cannot but wonder if the same image of "burnt offerings" is "spooked-up" by the use of the word 'altar' in a Christian church as Brother Henderson believes it is by the use of it in a Masonic Lodge.

The term 'cathedral' is somewhat more ambiguous. It is true that it may cause some to misunderstand what goes on in a Masonic Lodge. But to suggest that the term is only used for the seat of a Bishop is nonsense. The main building of the University of Pittsburgh is called "The Cathedral of Learning" and I know of no one who thinks it's a church. Furthermore, the term is used now for any large church--no Bishop sits at Chartres Cathedral for example.

As for the use of Elizabethan English in prayer, it is as much a feature of Baptist churches as it is of the Anglican church of England and this usage, archaic or not, has a very strong following. Influenced by the lofty language of the King James Bible, the English-speaking world has adopted a sacred language that imbrues them with a sense of passion and mystery in their religious ritual. Latin served the same function for the Catholic Church for centuries and their adaptation of the modern vernacular has not been universally well received. Communicating with God is a special experience and many people have been comfortable using a special language to do so. The Masonic usage of Elizabethan English has the same purpose and imparts the same sensation; I hope we keep it forever.

The term Grand Architect of the Universe is as legitimate a term for God as is 'God' itself. Furthermore, it is more in keeping with the general test of religion of the Craft. No Moslem would call God anything but 'Allah, ' yet the term GAOTU is unoffensive because all believers consent that God is the Designer of the Universe. The term is as old as Plato who described the Demiurgos as the "artificer of the world." The idea that Masons worship a different God than everyone else is not going to be expunged by dropping this totally harmless and highly accurate appellation for the Deity. The Toronto pastor Ron Carlson has accused Freemasonry of being phallic worship and he is not likely to be satisfied with us dropping 'Grand Architect of the Universe' as a term for God.

'Worshipful' means 'honorable' and is an entirely appropriate honorific for the Master of a Lodge. Those who have not read Shakespeare may not know this but, again, we might consider suggesting that people learn a little about the history of their language rather than wallowing in ignorance, demanding that the world conform itself to their trivial standards. If we drop 'Worshipful,' we had better be ready to drop 'Master' also since the next criticism will be that Jesus said that no man can serve two masters and therefore a Christian cannot be a Mason without violating this edict.

If we are to conform to Brother Henderson' s standard of linguistic democracy by removing 'Most' from the title of a Grand Master, we had better remove 'Grand' also and replace the whole title with ' Senior President, ' though even that smacks of some sort of stratification; maybe 'Good Friend' would work.

In summary, I believe that direct responses to external criticisms are a wholly inappropriate foundation for instituting change in Freemasonry. From within the Craft itself have come many suggestions for improvement and these deserve our attention, but those which have as their foundation the criticism of nonmembers have no reason to concern us. We will not attract new members this way without becoming something we are not, and should not be. Freemasonry is different, and it is that very difference which sets up apart from the rest of the world. We need not be imitators, but rather innovators; this is not a function of language, but of attitude--not words, but deeds.

----o----

We Are Guilty

by Allen E. Roberts, FPS

Yep. WE ARE guilty, guilty of a crime against Freemasonry. Guilty of a crime against Masonic knowledge. Guilty of the crime of selfishness.

Betcha didn't know this. But now that you're about to learn of this crime you'll stop committing it.

There's hardly a day that goes by that I don't receive a phone call or letter from an irate Freemason. Invariably the caller says: "Why are YOU keeping The Philalethes Society and its excellent magazine a secret? I've been a member of Masonry for [insert a number] of years and didn't hear about it until this week. Why? ! "

In MY defense let me say there are dozens of members of the Society throughout the country whose dues I paid for the first year. There are others whose initiation fee (now $10) I paid and who added the dues ($15). These were men I had hoped would become the Masonic leaders in the future, if they weren't already. This I shall continue to do.

How do I know YOU and I are guilty of the high crime of concealing the existence of The Philalethes Society? Because it isn't growing as it should. The rolls should increase by at least 50% every year. Instead the growth is about 10%. Sure we take in more members than this, but death, that great leveler of man, takes its toll.

Is the Society for everyone? Nope. Nothing ever will be for everyone. That's one reason there are more that 600 groups attached to the foundation of Freemasonry alone. Then there are those who don't want to be confused with facts. There are those who know all the answers. There are those who consider a little knowledge all they require in life. The Philalethes isn't for them.

But we won't know if the Society is for a particular Freemason unless we tell him about it. Better--show him a couple of issues of The Philalethes. Freemasons, alas, appear to be among the poorest class of readers. This must be true. Otherwise why would the sale of only 5,000 Masonic books cause it to be considered a best seller? Five thousand! And there are more than six million Master Masons throughout the free world! And as of today only 4,200 of them are members of The Philalethes Society!

This statement I make without qualification. The better Masonic leaders, almost without exception, are members of The Philalethes Society. How do I know? In many ways, but let me cite only one. I'm the Fraternal Reviewer for my Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons. As I go through the Proceedings of the Grand Chapters in the world, leadership, or the lack of it, stands out vividly. Without looking at the roster of the Society I can usually determine whether or not the leadership is a member. Its members stand out like sparkling stars in the Heavens. About 90% of you are the only members of The Philalethes Society in your Lodge. Isn't that a sure sign that you're guilty of not sharing the wealth of knowledge to be found within the Society. I've said it many times: The Philalethes Society is the greatest bargain in Freemasonry. Its members get far more out of it than they can ever put in--in time, money and information.

Yep. WE are guilty of not sharing the wealth.

You and I can resolve to remove our guilt. We can, today, invite at least one of our Brothers to become as well informed about Freemasonry as we are. We can tell him about The Philalethes Society. We can invite him to join the elite in Freemasonry. Tomorrow and each day thereafter ask another to share the ultimate in Freemasonry with us.

You don't need a petition. Simply send in the name, address, name of his Lodge, and a check for $25. Your Executive Secretary will do the rest. You'll have a life-long friend; Freemasonry will have a better leader or future leader.

----o----

Masonic Toasts

by S. Brent Morris, FPS

Presented to The Albert Pike Lodge of Perfection October 30 1985 A.D., 5985 A.’.L.’., Elkridge, Maryland

In twentieth century America, loud, boisterous toasting together with singing are virtually unknown at Masonic affairs. Their absence and our recent interpretation of temperance as abstinence are modern innovations to the body of Masonry. Indeed, an understanding of Freemasonry in its proper historical context demands a study of the Craft's early social customs, particularly those of drinking, toasting, singing, and banqueting .

By 1722, Freemasonry was a significant enough movement in London that it began to be parodied. An example of poking fun at the Craft is the ribald, anonymous poem entitled "The Free Masons: An Hudibrastick Poem. " In addition to a scandalously preposterous exposure of the "secrets" of Masonry, there was a rather lengthy discussion of Masons' toasting customs. We note that the drinking and toasting of the Lodges must have been rather well known, else it would not have been a good object of parody. This poem explains the Masons' favorite toast as follows:

They drink, carouse, like any Bacchus

And swallow strongest Wines that rack us;

And then it is they lay Foundation

Of Masonry, to build a nation.

They various Healths strait put around,

To ev'ry airy Female Sound;

But Sally Dear's the Fav'rite Toast,

Whose Health it is they drink the most (1)...

This refers, by the way, to Sally Salisbury, a noted woman of the evening.

Apparently she and a gentleman had some sort of a disagreement, which resulted in Sally placing a knife in him, and the constabulary placing her in Newgate Prison.

When the Rev. James Anderson produced The Constitutions of the Freemasons in 1723, he included several songs then popular with the Craft. So important were singing and festivities to the fraternity, that the very first songster published in the United States was Brother Ben Franklin's 1734 reprint of Anderson's Constitutions. In Laurence Dermott's Ahiman Rhezon of 1754, which served as the Constitutions for the Grand Lodge of Ancients, songs of a rather humorous nature appeared. An example of such lighter fare is "The Mason's Daughter, " which was reprinted in the United States in David Vinton's charming 1816 song book, The Masonick Minstrel. This ditty tells the story of a Mason's daughter and her suitor, and in part says:

Non shall untie my virgin zone,

But one to whom the secret's known, of fam'd freemasonry;

In which the great and good combine,

To raise, with generous design,

Man to felicity.

This said, he bow'd and went away:

Apply'd was made without delay,

Return'd to her again.

The fair comply'd with his request,

Connubial joys the couple blest,

And long may they remain. (2)

Mildly salacious songs such as this, however, caused Masons to stand out in puritan New England. Indeed Masonic singing and toasting led to some of the earliest condemnations of the Craft. It is easy to imagine a blue nosed critic sniffing his contempt: "Well you know those Masons they actually sing songs after their meetings! " However, not all sentiments expressed in Masonic toasts and songs were risque. A better sense of the Masonic spirit of these earlier times is given by the following "Toasts and Sentiments" from Vinton's Masonick Minstrel.

The Brother who stands plumb to his principles, yet is level to his brethren.

May ev'ry Mason RISE in the EAST, find refreshment in the SOUTH, and be so dismissed in the WEST, as to find admission into the middle chamber to receive the reward of a GOOD MAN

The heart that conceals, and the tongue that never reveals.

Love to ONE, friendship to a FEW, and good will to ALL.

To HIM, who all things understood,

To HIM, who furnished stone and wood,

To HIM, who nobly spilt his blood

In doing of his duty,

We hail the day! we hail the morn!

On which those three great men were born!

Who did the TEMPLE thus adorn

With WISDOM, STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. (3)

Since the turn of the century, our Grand Lodges have tried to eliminate the excesses of unbridled exuberance. We have seen the passage of gambling, drinking, toasting and other ancient customs that offended the tender sensibilities of our Brethren of the Victorian period; and yet the essential spirit of fraternalism remains. We may be more somber today (and certainly more sober), but our enthusiasm for the Craft is undimmed (even if our mode of expression has been tamed). When we do have the all too rare privilege of participating in the ancient custom of Masonic toasting, let us be enthusiastic, enjoy the spirit, and remember that we are continuing a tradition of good cheer and fun from our fraternity's very earliest days.

Footnotes

1. Douglas Knoop et al., Early Masonic Pamphlets (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1945), p. 87.

2. David Vinton, The Masonick Minstrel (Herman Mann & Co.: Dedham, Ma., 1816), pp. 38-39.

3. David Vinton, p. 445.

References

Douglas Knoop et al. Early Masonic Pamphlets Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1945.

David Vinton, The Masonic Minstrel, Dedham, Ma.: Herman Mann & Co., 1816.

----o----

Book L'arnin'

by Jerry Marsengill, FPS

"There is no frigate like a book..." Had I known the great part books were going to play in my later life, I wouldn't have joined in the juvenile snicker which the English teacher received when he assigned this poem to us to be memorized.

According to modern teachers I learned everything in the wrong way. I was required to learn by rote and to be able to quote a great deal of poetry. I learned, at an early age, to value books as a repository of the world's knowledge.

Not too long ago I spoke to a young man in my Lodge about serving on my committee for Masonic Education. I suggested that he read a certain number of books and tracts. He astonished me when he informed me that he hadn't read a book in more than ten years. Not only was he not ashamed to admit this, he seemed to take pride in his ignorance. He is not alone. Many of our leading Masonic authors display a woeful lack of acquaintance with all literature. A good deal of this attitude can be traced to our educational system.

I think the Grand Lodge of California with its public school support is doing one of the greatest things which Masons have done in this century. However, regardless of the work of the Grand Lodges and the Southern Jurisdiction Scottish Rite, education in this country has reached an all time low. We have more functional illiterates in this country at the present time than we did in the first quarter of the century. Why wouldn't we?

We hire sports figures for our college teams. We give them college scholarships and then we give them degrees in some field such as underwater basket weaving. Many times they do not even have to attend classes.

Our local news media informs me that one of the major universities in California has dropped more than half the textbooks in its sociology classes. Why? Because some of the students did not care for the material which the college was trying to teach them. What the college did, therefore, was to shirk its responsibilities, betray the cause of education, and let the students set the composition of the class. Let the students make the lesson plan, let them assign the textbooks, and let them decide just what they will learn. Talk about the inmates running the asylum!

This attitude is becoming more and more prevalent in our society. Shades of the famous Scopes " Monkey Trial." We have states trying to pass laws which would require the teaching of "creation science" on an equal basis with evolution. We have institutes for "creation science " springing up all over the country. The reasoning of some of the legislators, in Iowa and I assume in the rest of the country, is that the "Theory of Evolution" is just that, a theory. Now this attitude is foolish. The theory of evolution, natural selection, and the origin of various species has been better proved than any other theory of development which has ever been proposed. Yet, simply because of the word "theory" some of these fundamentalists would claim that evolution cannot be proved. They would strike at the foundations of physical science by requiring that the supernatural be taught in a natural science class.

In Iowa, and other states, we have become involved in a situation with our legislature which does not look bright for the cause of education. Our legislature is allowing parents to conduct schools at home or at some religious school and then testing the students to see that their education meets state standards. This doesn't satisfy the proponents of religious schooling. One minister, who is totally without a high school education, is endeavoring to get the legislature to amend the law to allow him to conduct classes at his church without the state having any input about the subjects to be taught and how these subjects will be taught.

Another plan, which is being widely considered, is to issue vouchers to all parents which can be redeemed at the school of their choice. This will give state aid to all private and parochial schools. The public schools will, if this plan were to be adopted, be on the same basis as the various religious and private schools. If this happens, the free public school, as we know it, will cease to exist and the separation of church and state will have suffered another crippling blow.

By this time you must be wondering just what this has to do with Masonic education. It has a great deal to do with it. If we are getting new members in our Lodges who have been educated in some of these schools, who have approached learning in a second-rate manner, how can we ever expect these new Masons to welcome any form of educational discipline?

Not that we have done much for the cause of educational discipline. We have treated "education" as if it were a word which should not be mentioned in polite society. I do not believe this. Rather than anything being wrong with the concept of "education" I feel it is the method which we try to use to educate our new members which is at fault. We have seen our educational programs in the fraternity become watered down, insipid, and useless. We never seem to develop a progressive educational program. Many times when we endeavor to develop an approach to education, we hold a program which lasts one day and gives those in attendance the knowledge that they have been there and probably a scrap of paper attesting to this.

Education is a process which takes time. Few people can be taught much after the age of sixteen. We need to establish a learning environment, present the material, and assist our new Mason while he learns on his own. We need a method of Masonic education which will make the student want to learn. When I studied Talmud and Torah (and this was over a period of some ten years) the Rabbi had all of us sitting around a table. Each of us would read a portion of the Mishnah and the Gemera in turn. The Rabbi would give his interpretation of the passage and then we would all discuss it. No one had to agree or disagree with the Rabbi. Our thoughts were sought. We didn't come to these classes unprepared. We read the proper portions of the Talmud at home, each week, before we went to the Beth-Midrash. We were assigned four blatt of Talmud. A blatt is two pages. We had to read eight pages of both Hebrew and Aramaic over and over again until we were familiar with it, before we went to class. It was an enjoyable learning experience. We learned. We were not graded. We were not tested. We completed against no one other than ourselves. We learned, not because we had anything to gain but for the sake of the learning itself. We developed a deep appreciation of the scriptures and a deep admiration for those old doctors of the law who had explained those scriptures.

If a person could be trained in the same manner to study Freemasonry, we would be able to point with pride to our young Masons. I have nothing against video tapes. I admire training aids. But these are tools for learning. We come from a society where a television set is used merely for background noise and it is hard to get anyone to concentrate on any program. Let us use books as our main method of education and supplement these books with tapes and moving pictures.

If a person has not yet discovered the wonder of the world of books, it is never too late to start. We are not talking about Masonic books. There are very few good Masonic books. If a person read all of the good Masonic books, they would not take up one tenth of his reading time. I am promoting the entire world of books. If a person thinks he is qualified to write on Freemasonry, he should have a working knowledge of the Scriptures, not from a religious standpoint, but from a historical and literary viewpoint. Plato's Dialogues should be read by every Mason wishing to learn, since so much of the information which is given to newly made Masons is stolen completely from Plato, through one or another Masonic author.

Shakespeare is one author who should never be neglected. Since we have used so much of his writing in our ritualistic work, we should become acquainted with the original source of the material. Read all of Shakespeare's good plays and poetry. I say his good work, because like many of the rest of us, old Bill wrote some real stinkers too. After you have mastered these three fundamental works, branch out. Use the local library. Read background works on history, geography, some sociology, and all the reference works you can read.

Read some good fiction. Read Kipling's stories, "The Man Who Would Be King," and "In The Interest of the Brethren. " Read his great novel "Kim." Note all of the Masonic references in these works. Read Robert A. Heinlein's work, especially his "future history. " In the story " If This Goes On, " note the totally Masonic initiation. Although never a Mason, Heinlein used Masonic symbolism and references throughout his science fiction.

Read nearly everything James Michener has written. Such works as "The Source," "Hawaii," "Poland," "Texas," "Caribbean" and Centennial" make history interesting and easy to read. If a person cannot read "The Source" carefully and not get a complete understanding of the Jewish religion, that person should never read another book. On the other side of the coin, Barbara Tuchman takes a history of the feudal period and tells it as if it were fiction in "A Distant Mirror." It is as easy to read as any novel yet it contains much more historical fact than most of the histories written in the proper scholarly style. (Dry and boring, that's the proper historical style.)

Finally read everything you can find by two authors. One is a Jew. The other is a Catholic priest. Isaac Asimov is an authentic historical treasure for this country. His science fiction is superb. His mystery stories are fascinating. His nonfiction, on nearly every subject from medicine to zoology to his amazing two volume historical book on the Bible are the best approach to all of these subjects I have ever read. Dr. Asimov has written more than 400 books and too many short stories to count. His sits at his word processor continually, never has a writer's block and writes books which will endure when most of us are just a memory. I think I have read every book which he has written. If not, it is not for lack of effort. I look forward to every new volume of the good doctor with happy anticipation. I won't mention any book which Isaac Asimov has written. If I mention the name of one, I will think of a hundred others which I should have named. My only suggestion is, get all of Isaac Asimov's books you can find and enjoy them.

Father Andrew Greeley is a treasure of the Roman Catholic Church. A sixty year old priest, Father Greeley spends his time teaching sociology and writing magnificent novels. Not that his novels stand alone. His books on the "Jesus Myth" and the "Mary Myth" as well as his "Making of the Popes" should be required reading for everyone who professes any religion. But it is in his novels that his work really comes alive. He writes stories of common, and very uncommon, men and women and, through these fictional vehicles, teaches about God and about God's grace. I first discovered Father Greeley through a newspaper column which he wrote in our "Catholic Mirror. " I looked forward to each appearance of this column. Then, one Wednesday, the column was not there. I waited for two more weeks and still no column. I went down to see the editor of the Mirror and asked why he had dropped the column. He informed me that the Bishop thought Father Greeley's work was too controversial and that he had had some complaints from people who were shocked by it. Never mind that most of these had never read one of the columns, probably couldn't read at all, and were vastly outnumbered by those of us who liked and admired Father Greeley's work. Like most good politicians the Bishop was following the old army dictum, CYA.

Then I discovered that Father Greeley had started to write novels. I picked up everyone which I could find. I put a standing order in at a local bookstore to get me a copy of them as soon as they were published. This was many years ago but I still look forward to Father Greeley's books like a child looking forward to Christmas. If the Catholic church has one good strong proponent, it is Andrew M. Greeley. He teaches the sacrament of grace through his works and he does it without preaching or sounding pedantic. Obtain and read his books. His writings will probably not make you want to join the Roman Catholic Church. They didn't me. But I will guarantee you one thing. Father Greeley's works will give you a better understanding of the Catholic Church and the hierarchy thereof. If I were in charge of the church, Father Greeley would be at least Pope. I might even recommend him for the next higher job. But not if it would mean that he would stop writing. I look forward to his once a year books with pleasure.

Read any and all books which you can find. Harry Truman had little formal education, yet he was one of the best informed presidents we have ever had. His knowledge of history and of military history amazed the military leaders of the world. Why? Harry Truman discovered the value of books at an early age and became an omnivorous reader.

Napoleon was one of the world's great military leaders. Yet he never undertook a campaign without a well stocked traveling library. He also knew the value of the printed word. I can't claim that if a Mason reads that he will be elected president or that he will conquer the world. I do claim that he will be a better informed, more interested and a more capable Mason in every endeavor. There is one of the greatest experiences which you can ever obtain awaiting you. It is yours for the asking. It is found in the World of books.

"There is no frigate like a book..."

----o----

The Bisection of the Yin-Yang

by Mervin B. Hogan, FPS

"At the normally perceptible level of existence, there is nothing which remains without movement, without change. Every single thing is either coming into existence, developing, decaying or going out of existence...Change, which is never-ending, proceeds according to certain universal and observable rules. (p. 39)

--John Blofeld, I Ching (1968) (6)

Introduction

The true and original ancient geometry of Euclid has been defined tersely, but accurately, as the science of straight lines and circles. Pre-eminently Freemasonry displays the circle with a point at the center in its venerable palladium of symbolic treasures. The yin-yang symbol is an impressively mature development of this early Masonic masterpiece; with the addition of two equal but asymmetrical semicircles on either side of a diameter of the bounding circle.

One of the truly magnificent, inclusive, creative conceptions of humanity is this intrinsically provocative oriental yinyang symbol. No one is likely ever to overdo his study, analysis, contemplation, and interpretation of this tremendous geometrical invention.

Scattered about in the public domain are a seemingly limitless assortment of what are referred to as "geometric dissection puzzles." The vast majority of these are polygonal figures of various kinds; very few are of circular or curved design

The Problem

The smaller or inner circle of Fig. 1 is the Great Monad of Oriental origin. This circle encloses the two comma-like semicircles of equal area forming an asymmetrical figure. The upper white half is known as the YANG, while the lower black half is identified as the YIN. Designate as point O the unlettered center of the circle or yin-yang figure. Such a simple geometric figure, comprised solely of circular arcs, with the center 0, is the graphic illustration facing the textbook reader whose attention is directed to the proposition:

Point O is the center of the large circle. The small arcs are semicircles. Show how to draw one straight line that bisects both areas.

This elementary curved figure and misleading simple directive constitute a near-perfect puzzle. The yang and yin elements are obviously equal, but the sinusoidal or serpent-like boundary between them is at once confusing and misleading. A reference line of any nature is seemingly missing, which subtly introduces a disturbing or unsettling emotional factor. To a high percentage of those applying their attention to the figure, the sought for reference line persists in being elusive.

Like all excellent puzzles, its source, antiquity, or history is unknown. Sam Loyd (1) calls it "The Monad Puzzle" and states the question " How should the Monad be divided?" (pp. 45-46, 141-142) H.E. Dudeney (2) presents the topic as "The Great Monad," with the directive:

Divide the Yin and the Yang into four pieces of the same size, but different shape, by one straight cut. (pp. 39, 174-175)

Martin Gardner, (3) (4) titles the puzzle "Bisecting the Yin and Yang" and states: "By the way, did you know that there is an elegant method of drawing one straight line across the circle so that it exactly bisects the areas of the Yin and Yang? "

Anthony Christie (5) points out that in Chinese mythology the four cardinal directions were related to the sides of "the square earth." (pp. 52, 56) Possibly associated with this geometrical concept was "a circular sky or heaven" in the form of an annular ring or annulus. (p. 56) With these suggestions in mind, the Great Monad of Fig. 1 calls for further scrutiny.

Clearly the two centers of the yang and yin semicircles, together with the original center in Fig. 1 determine a horizontal straight line. This line suggests the orientation of the square circumscribing the monad, and provides the sought for reference to the yang and yin design. In turn, the circle circumscribing the square follows.

If r is the radius of the monad, then the radius of the outer circle is r(sqrt 2), and the area of the "heavenly" annular ring is the same as that of the monad.

The Solution

The veracity of this bisection is readily and simply established. In Fig. 1 let A denote the area of the enclosing monad circle, which makes the area of the yang and the yin each A/2 and the area of circle K to be A/4. Imagine a horizontal diameter dividing K into an upper and a lower semicircle; making the latter A/8. Next; included between that horizontal diameter and the diagonal GH is a 45 ø circular sector, the area of which is evidently A/8. Hence, the area of yang beneath the dividing line GH is A/4, and yang is clearly bisected by line GH. The identical situation holds for area yin.

Dudeney gives a slightly different, but less simple solution.

Conclusion

Puzzles have attracted and retained the concentrated attention of certain individuals for ages and they do not appear to have lost their appeal to the minds of men.

References

l. Martin Gardner, editor, Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd, Dover Publications, Inc., New York Vol. 2, 1960, 177 pp.

2. Henry Ernest Dudeney, Amusements in Mathematics, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1958 258 pp.

3. Martin Gardner's New Mathematical Diversions from Scientific American; Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1983, 253 pp. "Yang-Yin," pp. 143-146; with related references. Originally published 1966 by Simon and Schuster.

4. Martin Gardner, "The Combinatorial Basis of the 'I Ching,' the Chinese Book of Divination and Wisdom;" Scientific American, January 1974, Vol. 230, No. 1, pp. 108-113, 130, also front cover, "Mathematics of the 'I Ching,"' and p. 4; ibid., November 1960, Vol. 203, No. 5, pp. 194-198, also previous issue.

5. Anthony Christie, Chinese Mythology; Paul Hamlyn, New York, 1973, 141 pp.

6. Translated and edited by John Blofeld, I Ching (The Book of Change); Dutton Paperback; E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1968, 228 pp.

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Through Masonic Windows

by Allen E. Roberts, FPS

What's the most popular Masonic periodical in the world? The Philalethes (see the article elsewhere). No other publication has as many of its articles clipped and used in local and Grand Lodge journals. This is good. But it would be wonderful to have them give The Philalethes and its writers credit.

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It's time for concern. A few of us have been supporters of Prince Hall Masonry for many years. As of today seven Grand Lodges, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Washington, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota and Minnesota, have recognized Prince Hall Masonry as equals. Each goes its own way, yet are free to work and meet together. So why be concerned. Because there is a small element on both sides attempting to upset this harmony. In The Northern Light one reader says recognition of "Prince Hall Lodges are in violation of our Masonic rules and obligations." Another takes a different view. He, as a Connecticut Mason, wants Thurgood Marshall, a Prince Hall Mason, counted as a Freemason. We have the United Grand Lodge of England refusing to permit its members to visit Lodges in the Grand Lodges that have recognized PH Masonry. Thankfully the one Grand Lodge in this country that took this action has rescinded it. In the Prince Hall Freemason's Journal of Illinois, a reader writes: "I feel that any organization that fosters racism and bigotry in its ranks should be censored for its tax-exempt status." He's referring specifically to a Grand Lodge. He, and others like him, want to bring "unity," even if it takes kicking and screaming to do it. Threats won't work. They should never be considered. Let's permit the tenets and principles of Freemasonry to bring us together--no matter how long it takes.

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The Northern Light, in an article titled "Strategy for the 90's," informs us that the majority of the Grand Masters attending their Conference in February has accepted the plan of the "Masonic Renewal Committee." Who the members of this committee are isn't stated, but the article tells us Robert C. Davis, MPS, of Guthrie, Oklahoma, can furnish information about its doings. The committee says it has video tapes, plus programs for membership development, leadership and management development, community and family services, and public awareness. It decided that Masonic education can wait! Surprising? Not exactly. At the Northeast Conference I noted that this committee has discovered nothing new. Everything it has proposed has been proposed for decades. The difference? The former proposals cost Freemasonry nothing. Appears to prove again something we get for nothing is considered good for nothing.

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ANONYMOUS: Your order was obeyed. Your highly suspect statistics on the evils of the legitimate product called "tobacco" went to my companion who has quit traveling. (Three others sent me the exact same "statistics.") This journal is a favorite with our fair sex, so my friend's response won't be reported verbatim. We both agree however that you are the type of coward who hides behind a ballot box and uses other kooks to do your dirty deeds. As with the camel, your ilk got its nose under the tent, and, with the aid of a "politically correct" government official, blew the evils of tobacco smoke out of all proportion. As for the weak-kneed members of the Congress who went along with your cult, the less said the better. Over 60 years ago antismoking advocates visited the schools I attended to tell us of the evils of smoking and alcohol. It should be noted the latter product, far more dangerous, is never mentioned by your ilk. Why? You might enjoy this jingle I learned over a half century ago written by another "anonymous": "Tobacco is a filthy weed. / I like it. / It satisfies no normal need. / I like it. / It makes you thin, it makes you lean, / It takes the hair right off your bean; / It's the worst darned stuff I've ever seen. / I like it." Strange. He/she doesn't mention the evils of "second-hand" smoke. Have fun. Look for an article shortly about the evils of dictators such as your species .

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John R. Nocas, FPS, informs us that the Grand Lodge of California will have a float in the Rose Bowl Parade. Wonderful. The theme for the parade is "Voyages of Discovery." The Masonic float will feature Benjamin Franklin, Charles Lindbergh and a Masonic astronaut. The Square and Compasses (misnamed "Compass" in CA) will be featured. Six-color Masonic pins of this float will be sold to help finance the project.

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Odd--or is it. The library of the House of the Temple doesn't have what Herbert Weber, MPS, has been searching for--C. Fred Kleinknecht's "Gems of Thoughts" which were published from 1950-70. He needs them for a research project. If you can help him, his address is 9509 Midwood Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20910.

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"Jack the Ripper" and his fictional Masonic connections still live. A fellow named Paul West has written a book which he readily admits isn't true. It's titled The Women of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper. In it he has the prostitutes "mutilated according to the 'Masonic manual of ritual murder."' (I've searched without success for this "manual. ") Michael Harris of the Los Angeles Times, in his review, asks: "Shouldn't the Masons, who rank among history's perennial scapegoats, cry foul?" Yep! But will we?

Cyril Batham, Foremost English

Freemason Coming

Fortunate, indeed, is The Philalethes Society and all Master Masons in North America. Cyril Batham, one of the most knowledgeable Freemasons in the world, will be the Society's Lecturer for the Annual Assembly-Feast-Forum. Mark your calendar for Friday, February 14 1992. Join us at the Hotel Washington in Washington, DC. And watch for a full account in our October issue of The Philalethes.