3S7 
 S"75 
 
 
045790 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 AN ENGLISH VIEW 
 
 
 FREEMASONRY IN AMERICA, 
 
 SET FORTH IN A LBTTER BY 
 
 GeorgeWilliam Speth, P. A.G.D.C., 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY! EDITOR 
 OF ARS QUATUOR CORONATORUM; ETC.. ETC. 
 
 Notes by an American Mason. 
 
 TACOMA, WASHINGTON, U. S. A, 
 
 I. E. CATES, PRINTER 
 
 l8t|S 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030280758 
 
AN ENGLISH VIEW 
 
 OF 
 
 FREEMASONRY IN AMERICA. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 In justice to the author of the following letter, a word of explanation seema called for. 
 
 Brother Georue W. Sfeth, as is well known to most students of Masonry, Btands in the 
 front rank of Masonic scholars, whether we judge him by the extent and minuteness of his 
 knowledge of the history, usages and principles of our Fraternity, by the variety and brilliancy 
 of his talents, or by the extent of his services to Masonic scholarship. His intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the English and continental usages of the Craft is personal; while his position as 
 originator and head of the Correspondence Circle of the famous Lodge Qnatuor Coronati, No. 
 2076, has placed him in close touch with the Fraternity wherever dispersed, and made him al- 
 most as familiar with the peculiar customs and theories of the Craft in other countries as with 
 those of his own Lodge. 
 
 I have counted myself most fortunate in having had, through a correspondence With him 
 which has extended through several years, the benefit of many invaluable hints and suggestions 
 from so helpful an adviser; and I have frequently urged Brother Spbth to give me at greater 
 length, his views on some of the subjects that claim so much attention from American Grand 
 Masters and committees on correspondence. The following letter is a result of these urgings ; 
 and the circumstances under which it was written— it having been intended for my eye alone — 
 explain its colloquial tone, its freedom of comment, and its entire absence of reserve. 
 
 The judgment of a competent friendly critic in a foreign country is liable to closely resem- 
 ble the judgment which ' posterity will pronounce. For a century and a half , we in America 
 have been working out Masonic problems in our own way. We can hardly hope that we have 
 fallen into no errors. I myself am satisfied that some of our peculiarities will appear to poster 
 ity very much as they appear to the intelligent English, German or Australian Mason of 
 today. If this be so, it gives an added value to Brother Speth's impressions of us; and hence, 
 as soon as I had read his letter, it seemed to me a pity not to share with my brethren criticisms 
 which appear to me so replete with instruction to all who are not rendered impervious to sug- 
 gestion by a conviction of the infallibility of their preconceived notions or the authority of their 
 local customs, and most helpful to those who deBire to free American Masonry from modern 
 fads and isms, and restore the ancient Landmarks. Hence I sought and— after much hesita- 
 tion on his part--at last obtained Brother Speth's reluctant permission to print what he had 
 written. Only a few sentences of a purely personal character at the end of the letter have been 
 omitted. 
 
 Brother Speth is, of course, not responsible for the title which has been given the pam- 
 phlet, or for the side heads. 
 
 A few notes have been appended, as apossible aid to younger brethren; and the whole is 
 submitted to the Craft with the hope that it may be a help to a better understanding of pure an- 
 cient MaBonry. 
 
 Seattle, William H. Upton. 
 
 27 Die, r&)7. 
 
 Bromley, Kent, October 20, 1897. 
 My Dear Brother Upton : 
 
 I have read your last Report on Foreign Correspondence through 
 from beginning to end. Now, when you come to think of it, this is a 
 very high compliment to have paid you. I receive so many of these Re- 
 ports in the course of the year. Many of them are marked by 
 Of Cams- rare literary excellence, so that their perusal partakes of the na- 
 ^Refarls! #ire of an intellectual treat, in spite of occasional Americanisms 
 which jar upon our English ears; most of them are replete with 
 clever argument, although the writers appear to me frequently to be 
 
speaking to a brief instead of devoting their gifts to ascertaining the 
 truth, and to be straining logic to the breaking point; and all deal with 
 questions which are intensely interesting in themselves, although, I am 
 glad to say, for the most part strange to the circumstances surrounding 
 our English Craft. -And yet I seldom do more than dip into them here 
 and there. You see, in the first place, A and B criticise C, which often 
 renders it needless to read the latter, because I know already what he 
 has said; and then, I have so. little time to spare. With eight hours a 
 day all the year round devoted to the actual conduct of the business of 
 my own Lodge, you will not wonder that I try to minimise all extrane- 
 ous Masonic work. And so, having nevertheless studied your last Re- 
 port from Alpha to Omega, I assert that I have paid you the highest 
 compliment in my power, and am deserving of your gratitude. But I 
 
 shall not now further comment on it than to briefly glance at 
 Of certain the twelve conclusions which you propound at pp. 53-54-' 
 *Mas e oni{ r - You claim more than l am v^ i 1 1 ing to concede, although I 
 History, do not deny that my thoughts have more than once turned in 
 
 the same direction. I almost agree with your last five words, 
 however, "But absolute proof is wanting," only I should put it thus: — 
 Proof is absolutely wanting. 2 
 
 2. Hangs or falls with No. i, and is therefore not discussible until its 
 forerunner is settled. 
 
 3. I disagree in toto; nothing even like it existed on the Continent 
 in historical times. 3 (I do not, of. course, know what went on there be- 
 fore the flood). 
 
 4. I must modify your statement in the sense indicated by you lower 
 down on the same page. Institutions similar to our Mason's Gilds did 
 exist on the Continent both before and after 1717, but none before 1717 
 with the faintest real resemblance to our Freemasons' 1 Lodges.. There is, 
 no doubt, a decided resemblance in the French Compagnonage, but the 
 doubt here is as to whether this resemblance is not post 1717 and a copy 
 of Freemasonry. 
 
 5-7. I am in thorough accord with you. 
 
 8.- Too vaguely put: It may be twisted to mean two different things. 
 Lodge may be held to mean the ordinary masons' lodge or workshop. 
 In that sense the Steinmetz Huetten, or Lodges, did and do still exist. 
 But if Lodge be held to mean anything approaching inform or inten- 
 tion the Freemasons' Lodges of London in 1717, I must go further than 
 you and state my belief that outside the British Isles it not only did not 
 exist then, but never had existed at all. 
 
 9. Agreed. 
 
 10. You claim too much: I believe "majority" to be an excessive 
 estimate. But I am willing to allow that in 1752 there were probably 
 a few Lodges in England, and a goodly number in Scotland, which still 
 remained outside the Grand Lodge System. One of these at Melrose 
 remained isolated until three or four years ago, when it finally joined 
 the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Such a Lodge naturally could only be 
 called "clandestine" or "irregular" in a strictly technical sense and 
 viewed from the standpoint of the Grand Lodge. 4 
 
 n. Is answered by the above comments on 10. 
 
 1. Notes, including these "conclusions," will be found at the end of Bro. Spetii's letter. 
 
i2. Again you claim rather more than I can concede. Let me re- 
 write the whole clause for you: I believe it will be sufficient for your 
 argument. Thus: 
 
 "That throughout the last century and well on into this, lodges have 
 been formed by British Masons 5 without the previous consent or author- 
 ity of Grand Lodge or of the Grand Muster, and that although such ac- 
 tion would have been considered irregular, if formal complaint had 
 been laid, there has never been the least difficulty made by Grand 
 Lodge, in granting a warrant to such lodges on application and thus reg- 
 ularizing them, neither have the founders of such lodge ever been cen- 
 sured for their irregularity of conduct." 
 
 You ask me to give you some idea how American Masonry strikes the 
 average English Craftsman. Well, in the first place, I think the 
 ZgeEng- avera g e Englishman, with that insular self sufficiency which is 
 Ushman. so truly charming a trait in his character, knows very little 
 about American Masonry, and cares, if possible, still less. He 
 is content to know that the Craft with you is prospering; he hears that 
 English Masons are well received when they visit your Lodges; he re- 
 ciprocates by showing his genuine pleasure when American Masons visit 
 his Lodge, and by offering them such hospitality as is in his power. Fie 
 is naturally somewhat astonished to find that about every third Mason 
 who hails from your side is a Grand Master or Past Grand Master; he 
 wishes he could "orate" after dinner as they do; and he probably en- 
 quires whether the visitor, who perhaps lives in New York, happens to 
 know his cousin who has settled down in some place in California. And 
 he has not the faintest suspicion that your organization and arrange- 
 ments differ from those he is accustomed to, about as much as chalk 
 from cheese. He lives in a delightful state of blissful ignorance, which 
 it were pity to needlessly disturb. 
 
 But of course there are manv of us who do know something more, 
 only they are nor the average English Mason; and as they are all men 
 who think for themselves, I hardly know that I am in any way author- 
 ised to voice their sentiments. I might make a mistake, and there are 
 too many of them to consult before writing to you. However, having 
 thus premised that I am possibly judging the sentiments of my fellows 
 by my own, I will touch, in a sort of cursory way, upon one or two sub- 
 jects which strike us as remarkable. 
 
 What on earth does an American Grand Master want to be always 
 giving decisions on some triviality for? Whv can not such trumpery 
 questions, as most of them are, be left to the good sense and 
 Gr a " d , initiative of the Lodges or their Masters? Are they children, 
 decisions, that they can not be allowed to act on their own judgment? 
 With us a W. M. does as seems best to him, after consultation 
 with his experienced Past Masters; and if wrong or any one can be of- 
 fended, the matter can be placed before our Board of General Purposes, 
 from which an appeal lies to the Grand Lodge, but not to the Grand 
 Master. Nine-tenths of the puerilities which are submitted to your 
 Grand Masters would never be heard of here beyond the walls of the 
 particular Lodge concerned. We are over-legislated for enough, in all 
 conscience, but you do not seem to dare to call your souls your own 
 without appealing to a Grand Master to corroborate the fact. Do you 
 not think that if,' instead of electing your Grand Masters for one year, 
 or perhaps two, vou were to choose your very best men for the purpose 
 and keep them in office for a good spell, say till they got too old to bear 
 
the burthen, they would be less anxious to mark their tenure of office by 
 a whole string of decisions on trumpery matters, and would remit these 
 absurd questions to the senders, with the wholesome advice to study the 
 Constitutions and By-Laws, and to utilise such common sense as T. G. 
 A. O. T. U. may have endowed them with? Of course I know my plan 
 would not suit you, more's the pity, because every Mason among you 
 wants his chance of becoming a Grand Master, "just as every one here 
 wants to be the Master of a Lodge at some absurdly short interval after 
 his initiation, arising from the fact that, owing to our reserving certain 
 secrets for the chair, the office of W. M. is looked upon less as a rank in 
 Lodge, than as a degree, which, according to our Constitutions, it is not. 
 In Germany they have no chair secrets, neither is it necessary to be a 
 Past Master in order to sit in Grand Lodge; therefore, there is no over- 
 whelming desire to be W. M. The consequence is that the German 
 brethren choose the very best man they have lo preside oyer them, 
 sometimes even against his inclination, and then they keep him in the 
 post until age or infirmity forces them to let him retire. It is not every- 
 thing which is "made in Germany" which can be pronounced supreme- 
 ly good, but here, at least, we have an ideal state of affairs. It would be 
 impossible for us to copy the Germans in this matter, and I know it 
 would be impossible for you to copy us in the matter of Grand Masters, 
 but I submit that your plan has its disadvantages. There is a character 
 in one of Dickens' novels, who went out walking one day with his "best 
 girl." Suddenly he exclaimed in a tone of surprise, as if the artful fel- 
 low had not prepared it all beforehand, "Hallo! Here's a church! Hal- 
 lo! Why, I've got a ring in my pocket! Let's get married!" And so 
 I conceive your Grand Masters welcoming every trifling question sub- 
 mitted to them, and then exclaiming in well-feigned innocence, "Hallo! 
 I'm a Grand Master! Let's decide something." 
 
 One of these questions of constant recurrence, concerns the precise 
 amount of injury to a man's limbs which shall disqualify him 
 Physical f or membership. Second only to our astonishment at the en- 
 cattons. quiry itself, is our amusement at the variety of solutions prof- 
 fered by the Grand Masters in different states, or even by suc- 
 cessive Grand Masters in the same state. Such a question as this would 
 be answered by every W. M. according to common sense, so far as we 
 are concerned. As long as a candidate can comply with the ritualistic 
 requirements, we are satisfied. Fancy debarring a man from the purely 
 intellectual and moral delights of Lodge life, because he has had the 
 misfortune to lose the top joint of his little toe or finger! We should as 
 soon think of turning a candidate back because he happened to squint 
 or was bald. By the way, what do you do with a bald man? He is just 
 as physically imperfect as some who have been rejected. What do you 
 do with a Jew? Owing to a certain religious rite, they are none of them 
 quite perfect specimens of humanity. Early last century the question 
 arose in Germany whether an Italian opera singer, a castrate, could be 
 initiated. No race has grasped the moral beauties of Freemasonry better 
 than the Germans, so we need not be surprised to learn that the reply 
 was to the effect that moral excellence should be the point to strive for, 
 not physical perfection. Where shall we look for a physically perfect 
 man? And where shall we draw the line? What amount of imperfec 
 tion shall we wink at? If you should be desirous of writing a really 
 amusing little pamphlet, collect all the different decisions given in this 
 
matter, and do not forget to record also the reasoning. It would be 
 great tun. 6 
 
 Another point which astonishes us, and which I cannot but think 
 must be very detrimental to the true spirit of Freemasonry, is 
 Large the size of your Lodges. What real comfort can there be in a 
 Lodges. Lodge of 200. 300 or 400 members? What possibility of each 
 member knowing, as he should do, all the others? What so- 
 ciability? And. as if to take away what little chance might be left, I un- 
 derstand that it is very seldom you sit down to a common meal after 
 the work of the Lodge is over. Our Lodges average 40 or 50 members, 
 and our initiations about three or four per annum. There is thus time 
 for the new members to be assimilated and form part of a united whole. 
 W hen one of our Lodges grows too large, there is always a swarm-off 
 and a new Lodge is established. Promotion to office, except in rare 
 cases, goes by seniority;" that is to say, we ballot for our Master, and 
 although exercising our free choice, we usually elect the S. W. The W. 
 M. appoints his officers, and his choice is unlimited, but he seldom fails 
 to give every officer a step upward, and to select for the junior officer 
 the first in seniority on the roll of unofficial members. The result of 
 these small Lodges is, therefore, that we all know each other intimately, 
 and that every man is tolerably sure of promotion in the course of a few 
 years; and thus we avoid all canvassing for office, log-rolling, wire-pull- 
 ing, party divisions and cliques. Can this be said of your Lodges? 
 There is- one disadvantage in our plan; owing to this promotion by 
 seniority, we sometimes get poor i>residents and officers, but not so of- 
 ten as you would think. ' It acts fairly well in practice. Although I 
 should prefer the German plan to which I have already alluded, on the 
 whole, I think ours must be much better than yours. Then again, we 
 almost invariably sit down to a meal in common after the labours of the 
 evening. This gives the opportunity, which is lacking during Lodge 
 hours, of becoming well acquainted with each other. The result is, 
 that each Lodge is a little family to itself, and the main object of the 
 Craft, good-fellowship, is promoted. Do not run away with the 
 Sde'if ' c ' ea tnat these dinners are costly banquets. This may be more 
 Masonry, or less the case in London, but the great majority of the pro- 
 vincial Lodges only have one banquets, year, on the installation 
 night, and on other occasions content themselves with a simple joint, 
 vegetables and cheese, washed down with beer or whiskey, at a cost of 
 about 50 to 75 cents per head. Sometimes it simply consists of bread 
 and cheese and a smi>ke to follow, which costs even less, but answers 
 the same purpose of social intercourse. I think if you generally adopt- 
 ed this plan, you would be less troubled with what appears to annoy you 
 so much, the unnttached Mason. If I understand your circumstances 
 correctly, 1 wonder you have not more. A man joins a Lodge of over 
 100 members of whom he knows some three or four, and even these he 
 can only look at'vn Lodge, because, of course, silence must be observed. 
 He perhaps is diffident, and therefore does not aspire to office, or is 
 conscious that he stands no chance of being elected, and so, after listen- 
 ing to the same ceremonies for a year or two, and feeling himself almost 
 as much a stranger in the Lodge as when he entered, and of little im- 
 portance, he begins bv stopping away, and finally sends in his resigna- 
 tion. Frankly, what is thereto induce him to remain? But give him 
 an opportunitv, at every meeting, of extending the circle of his friends, 
 of spending a pleasant hour or two over the dinner table and desert, of 
 
gradually feeling that he is really an integral part of the Lodge, and I 
 think you will keep him with you. The experiment would be worth try- 
 ing; it is certainly more reasonable than the too prevalent hab- 
 Legisia-, it. of reviling him, trying to coerce him, and almost branding 
 Against him as infamous, because, forsooth, he has in the first case ex- 
 non-af- ercised his free-will, in joining you, and finding you were not 
 -filiates. interesting enough, has asserted his free-will once more, and 
 his undoubted right, in leaving you. Americans claim to be a 
 free people, but who would guess it from reading the accounts of the 
 measures advocated and sometimes resorted to, in order to compel a 
 brother to do that to which he is not inclined? The spirit shown in 
 some of your jurisdictions is not that of Freemasonry, but of the worst 
 type of trades-unionism I take it that vour eccentric Mystic Shiine is 
 practically an acknowledgement that you feel the want of this social side 
 to your arrangements. The Shriner's ways seem to me to be rather un- 
 dignified for anything in connection, however remotely, wi'h Freema- 
 sonry; but in spite of that, it must be rare fun. and were I in America I 
 would like to join it; only they would not have me, because I am neither 
 a Knight Templar nor a Scottish Riter. 8 
 Another typical American arrangement is that of conceding a speci- 
 fied territorial jurisdiction to each Lodge. This would not do 
 o"'f e A Ce at a " in "E- n K lan d, and I am much inclined to doubt if it proves 
 cation' a success in the States. We hold that "Masonry is free," but 
 the very first x\v\T\gyou do is to limit a man's freedom in his 
 choice of a Lodge. With us, the Lodge in many respects resembles the 
 family, as I have already observed. You may liken a man's entrance 
 into a Lodge to his adoption into a family by marriage or otherwise. 
 The family (or Lodge) has an undoubted right to say whether they will re- 
 ceive him as a son or son-in-law, and he. being a free man, has as unequiv- 
 ocal a right to choose the family into which he will enter or marry. Con- 
 sequently here in England, a man enquires previously as to the men 
 who constitute the Lodge, so that he may form some idea whether he 
 will feel comfortable in it; and the Lodge only accepts his nomination 
 on the personal knowledge of at least one of the members. There is 
 thus a sort of mutual introduction, but should a mistake nevertheless 
 occur, a remedy is easily found; the brother visits other Lodges until he 
 finds one which suits him, and joins that. "Free to, free from," no co- 
 ercion of any sort, as it should be in Freemasonry. But in the United 
 States he has, generally speaking, no choice at all. He must petition to 
 join a certain Lodge and no other, and once in, if he does not find him- 
 self comfortable, if the tone of the Lodge does not suit him, or if he is 
 dissatisfied with its working — thinks it not go-ahead enough or too 
 much so — or meets therein one or two members whom he. perhaps cause- 
 lessly but none the less sincerely, dislikes, there is no help for him; he 
 must either put up with it all or demit, and if he choose the latter alter- 
 native, he can not affiliate with any other Lodge except bv changing his 
 residence. 9 Would it not be possible to account for a few of your unaf- 
 filiates in this manner? And so I hold that the regulation is unjustified, 
 both on first principles, and also in its results. 
 
 But even this is not the worst. The plan entails as a necessary conse- 
 quence an utterly perverse view as to the obligations of a Mason 
 Yi^^i^i i n cast i n ? h' s ballot. As I have before insisted, the Lodee is 
 a ' my home, my family, and I have a right to expect absolute 
 comfort in it. I have a right, and in England I exercise it, to say when 
 
7 
 
 a candidate is proposed, '-I do not like this man; he may be a very 
 worthy fellow, I am perhaps wrong in disliking him, but nonetheless, 
 it ne joins my family and I am thrown into constant contact with him, 
 nomewill no longer be home to me, I shall be uncomfortable, and 
 tneretore 1 refuse to admit him into the Lodge." And I either acquaint 
 nis proposer with this fact, in order that the nomination may be quietly 
 withdrawn, or I blackball him.w I do not thereby cast any stigma upon 
 mm. My action at most raises a slight suspicion which calls for added 
 caution on the part of any other Lodge to which he may apply, if they 
 know of it. And I in no way bar his entrance into the Craft. But with 
 you the case is different. If he be blackballed in your Lodge, he can 
 not apply to another unless he change his residence, and therefore the 
 doctrine has grown up in America, and most logically so, that private 
 likes and dislikes must not be allowed to weigh with a brother in casting 
 his ballot. The applicant's character only must be considered, because 
 rejection by the Lodge means his exclusion altogether from the Craft, 
 and undoubtedly casts a lasting stigma upon his fair fame. Now, if we 
 grant that all your members are conscientious and follow this perverted, 
 although in your case necessary, view of the ballot, then it must inevita- 
 bly happen that uncongenial men are thrust into close relationship in 
 your Lodges. It practically amounts to this: A. is proposed, B. does 
 not like him, but knows nothing against him, so like an honest man he 
 votes for him, and his pleasure in Lodge association is destroyed. The 
 end of it must often be that B. becomes that bugbear of the American 
 Mason, an unaffiliate. Or else, B. forgetting his obligation as a good 
 American Mason, casts a blackball, and a worthy man is deprived of all 
 opportunity of becoming a member, and a possible credit to the Craft. 
 In eii her event great injury is done to A. or to B., as the case may be. Do 
 you not think I have managed to account for a large percentage of your 
 non-affiliates? And do you think there is any likelihood of coercing 
 them into rejoining, so long as these hindrances exist? 
 
 And then again, this perverted view of the ballot causes mischief by 
 providing some sort of colourable excuse for that nightmare 
 jurffdZ^ 1 °^ a doctrine which is now fighting for acceptance in the Unit- 
 tion. ed States. I mean the doctrine of perpetual jurisdiction, so 
 
 that, even by changing his residence, the persecuted candidate 
 shall be unable to escape the evil effects of a rejection, caused, for all 
 that is known, by the private pique of one "or two brethren. The argu- 
 ment is to a certain extent logical. It runs thus: "Mr. S. was rejected 
 by Lodge A., therefore there must be something very shady about his 
 character, he cannot possibly be a fit candidate for our society. He 
 lived quite close to Lodge A., and of course they know all about him. 
 He now applies to Lodge B , 500 miles off, where he has only lately 
 come to reside, and it cannot be expected that Lodge B. should know 
 much about his past career. Therefore, let' us make it a law that Lodge 
 B. shall not accept his nomination unless Lodge A. signifies to them 
 that Mr. S. has reformed his ways and that they now see no objection to 
 his being made a member of the Craft." Admitting that such a thing 
 as a ballot cast in mistake, from ignorance, or from pique, is an absolute 
 impossibility; premising, in fact, that such a thing as an unconscientious 
 American Mason does not exist, I really think the doctrine, tyranical as 
 it appears, could be defended. But even American Masons are not all 
 impeccable angels; you are one, of course, my dear Bro. Upton, and so 
 am I, and so are all our intimate friends, no doubt (Eh?), but there are 
 
a few whom we know and about whom we are not quite so sure. Is not 
 that so? And thus one mistake leads to another. Your local jurisdiction 
 necessitates a wrong idea of the ballot, and this naturally leads to at- 
 tempted tyranny, and claims which are logically untenable, tor this 
 doctrine of perpetual jurisdiction involves two assertions; the one ot 
 perpetual jurisdiction over an individual who has never come under the 
 Lodge's jurisdiction at all; and the other of jurisdiciion over a sister 
 Lodge, by limiting its choice of members. Was I right to call i he doc- 
 trine a nightmare? It'oppresses those who have been seized by it to 
 such an extent that they have lost all sense of right and wrong, all per- 
 ception of first principles, all appreciation of logic. And some ot ihem 
 are trained lawyers, too! A very terrible nightmare, i' faith! 
 
 From the American doctrine of Lodge jurisdiction, we naturally pass 
 to the American doctrine of Grand Lodge jurisdiction. It is, 
 Gra«d f course, no secret that this is utterly distasteful to us in Eng- 
 Sovfr- land ' and that vve refuse to concur in it. To treat it as a land- 
 ed.)', mark constitutes the height of absurdity, because Freemasonry 
 predates Grand Lodges by centuries, and any rule of Grand 
 Lodge sovereignty must have had its origin in some regulation of a 
 Grand Lodge, and have been absolutely unknown before 1717. 
 
 The doctrine in its simplest form took birth between 1717 and 1720, 
 as it is laid down by Grand Master Payne in the '-Old Regulations" that 
 no new Lodge was to be accepted as regular unless formed with the 
 Grand Master's consent. But in this form it is not very far reaching. 
 Note 111 the first place, that although not distinctly so stated, the regula- 
 tion only contemplates new Lodges within the Bills of Mortality, i. e., 
 within the confines of ihe cities of London and Westminster. Lodges, 
 therefore, formed elsewhere, were considered regular enough. Next, 
 such irregular Lodges are not termed clandestine, but simply irregular, 
 which practically meant that they could not be recognized by Grand 
 Lodge or their members admitted to the Quarterly Communications. 
 Further, that no disqualification is imposed upon Lodges already exist- 
 ing, of which there were probably many, nor is there any indication of 
 an effort to force them to come into the family. The whole proceeding 
 is therefore simply the establishment of a sovereign jurisdiction for 
 London and Westminster, but not of a sole jurisdiction. But even in 
 this mild form, so different from the drastic measures of our American 
 brothers, I hold it to have been a usurpation of the inherent right of 
 Masons, when in sufficient numbers, to meet and form a Lodge at their 
 pleasure. I do not say the usurpation was not justified, but a usurpa- 
 tion it undoubtedly was. Still, in course of time, the majority of Lodges 
 throughout the country joined the Grand Lodge, and the original Ma- 
 sons dying and leaving no successors, whereas all the new Masons had 
 given their adhesion to the regulation, this inherent right practically 
 lapsed for want of user. 11 To this doctrine we gave a final touch, so far 
 as we are concerned, in 1770, when, in recognising the newly formed 
 Grand Lodge of the Netherlands, we agreed to cease granting English 
 warrants for Lodges in the Low Countries; but, just as in 1720 we made 
 no attempt to coerce previously existing Lodges in London, so in 1770 
 we took care that previously existing Lodges in Holland should not be 
 coerced into joining the Dutch Grand Lodge, but provided by treaty 
 for their unmolested existence, so long as they should desire. 18 And let 
 it not be said that we only insist upon our view of the doctrine when it 
 works favorably for us; we have relaxed .its operation in at least one 
 
notable instance to our own disadvantage. When England acquired 
 Cape Colony we found Dutch Lodges there; we also established Lodges 
 of our own, and according to our own rule (settled in 1770 between Hol- 
 land and. ourselves) we should have been justified in permitting the con- 
 t i nU xi nC u , f se Dutch Lod g es - but in forbidding the Grand Lodge of 
 the Netherlands to issue any further warrants. We did not take this 
 
 ^ tter i« le & and t0 this day new Dutch Lodges are being formed at the 
 Cape. 1 '* Our position is therefore perfectly clear. We have always in- 
 sisted upon certain rights for our own Lodges, and we have not only 
 willingly granted these same rights to foreign Lodges in our own terri- 
 tories, but have magnanimously waived in their favour regulations on 
 which we might have stood firm. 
 
 But you go much further than this. Your American doctrine, if I 
 understand it rightly, not only places it in the power of an insignificant 
 minority of the Lodges in a given district to form themselves into a 
 Grand Lodge and claim recognition, but enables them to compel a pos- 
 sibly laige majority of dissentient Lodges to fall into line, or to be 
 banned as irregular and clandestine. 14 In this case it is not even the 
 tyranny of a majority, but may be that of a minority, sheltering itself be- 
 hind a so-called landmark, which is only a regulation, and not a univer- 
 sally acknowledged one at that. 
 
 Consider how badly it may possibly work. The Gran Dieta of Mexico 
 now claims acknowledgement at the hands of the American Grand 
 Lodges, and has been recognised by some. I am not going into the 
 question of whether it is deserving of recognition in itself; Bro. Chism 
 may be right, or Bro. Parvin may be so; it does not affect the question 
 at all, for even Bro. Parvin will not deny that there are many Lodges 
 and even Grand Lodges in Mexico which, in their origin, are as legiti- 
 mate as those under the Gran Dieta. Apparently, they are in a huge 
 majority. Now, every American Grand Lodge which recognises the 
 Gran Difta thereby declares all these other Lodges and Grand Lodges 
 outside the pale of Masonry, and their members illegitimate and clan- 
 destine Masons, with no right to the title and no claim to be treated as 
 brothers. 15 Even if the Gran Dieta be really all that Bro. Parvin says 
 it is, such a result in itself must strike every fair-thinking Mason as un- 
 just and deplorable; but, supposing Bro. Parvin be wrong, and Bro. 
 Chism right! What then? Surely, I need say no more! The doctrine 
 is utterly indefensible. To merely state it in all its horrid nakedness is 
 to condemn it. The erection of a new Grand Lodge, no matter where 
 or when or how, can not possibly invalidate the right of a Lodge or 
 Lodges, predating it, perhaps by a generation, to continue to be received, 
 acknowledged and recognised as regular in every way. You might as 
 well sav that when a younger son marries and sets up house-keeping for 
 himself, the elder son must either desert his father's house and go to 
 live with his younger brother — showing him all the honor and obedi- 
 ence due to his parent — or, cease to be considered a man at all, to be 
 treated as an outlaw whom any man may slay wherever met. 
 
 But I think what surprises us most in England, is your Drink 
 Legislation. 16 We have many confirmed teetotallers here 
 Drink among the brotherhood, and occasionally they form new 
 lation Lodges where they can meet and practise their principles with- 
 out being offended at the sight of the unregenerate enjoving 
 one of the gifts which God has provided for man, but which they reject, 
 and which the fanatics among them would disallow to all if they had 
 
IO 
 
 the power. To this I have no objection whatever; these brethren either 
 do not like alcohol, or conscientiously believe its consumption to be 
 hurtful to their bodies or souls, and they have every right to form a 
 Lodge where their own ideas of pleasure or morality can be carried out. 
 I say they have every right to form a new Lodge avowedly on teetotal 
 principles, but I would not concede to a chance majority in an old 
 Lodge the right to pass a by-law and forcibly turn it into a teetotal 
 Lodge, no matter how small the adverse minority of wine drinkers 
 might be. I do not recognise the right of any majority to deprive a 
 minority of a right, unless such right can be shown to be injurious to 
 the majority; and it is plain that /cannot hurt you by drinking a glass 
 of wine. So I have no quarrel with these Lodges; I do not even think 
 it inhospitable of them not to provide wine for their visitors who are un- 
 accustomed to find pleasure in swilling pure water or some of the inde- 
 scribably nauseous concoctions which the abstainers vainly try to imag- 
 ine they enjoy as substitutes for good wine or beer; because you can pay 
 no higher compliment to a guest than to treat him as one of the family. 
 So, if I visit a teetotal Lodge I persuade mvself for the time being that 
 I relish drinking the toasts in water, or ruining my digestion by convert- 
 ing the beef and mutton into leather by the iction of the tannin in the 
 tea. And I possibly revenge myself for my enforced abstinence by a 
 nice little night-cap when I arrive home. All I object to is the title of 
 Temperance Lodges which they incorrectly assume, an astounding piece 
 of insolence which implies that all other Lodges are intemperate. 
 
 But this is the farthest we go. What do you do? It is not an indi- 
 vidual Lodge which forbids the use of stimulants at its repasts. This 
 would be unpardonable, as I have already shown, unless the Lodge were 
 avowedly formed in the first instance on teetotal principles. And even 
 then, it would be grossly unfair in America, owing to your doctrine of 
 Lodge jurisdiction, so that an intending candidate or joining biother 
 has no choice whether he will join a teetotal Lodge or a non-abstaining 
 one. But it is your Grand Lodges which pass the law, thus depriving 
 not only individual Masons, but whole Lodges of one more prerogative 
 of a free man or body. It is the tyranny of the majority once more. 
 And are then, as we might justly conclude, the majority of American 
 Masons teetotallers? Nothing of the sort; not one in twenty of them, to 
 Ye Amer- Judge by those who visit us here. Seldom indeed does an 
 ican American visitor decline to pledge us in a glass of good wine, 
 
 abroad. whether in Lodge or out of it. So it amounts to this: That a 
 majority of Masons who drink wine on occasion, but do not particularlv 
 care about doing so at meals, insist upon it that no one else shall do so 
 at a Lodge dinner. There can be only one justification for such action, 
 which is, that the majority fear that a large proportion of their fellow 
 Masons can not be trusted to drink alcohol at a Lodge banquet without 
 getting drunk and thus bringing disgrace upon the Lodge and the Craft. I 
 hardly like to suggest such a reason; it would speak so badly for the Lodge 
 members in admitting the drunkards in the first instance, and for not 
 getting rid of them quickly when their want of moral fibre was discov- 
 ered. . But although this would render your drink legislation compre- 
 hensible to us, it would not even then excuse it in our eves, because the 
 Mason who would get drunk in Lodge, will do so outside with equal fa- 
 cility and readiness, and as most people know him to be a Mason, the 
 disgrace to the Craft would not be minimised. The only sensible plan 
 is to try to reform him, and if unsuccessful, expel him. 
 
II 
 
 But you go infinitely beyond this, and wander still further from the 
 paths of logic and "sweet reasonableness." In some jurisdictions we 
 near that Grand Lodge has passed a law that no manufacturer of, or 
 dealer in, alcoholic liquors, shall be admitted a member of the 
 defers u^" . What "^summer madness is this? You nctually cast a 
 as can- " u S e stigma on a large class, the majority of which is comprised 
 didates. of men as virtuous, as honourable, as upright as any citizen of 
 the State. They do not get drunk themselves, they do not in- 
 cite others to get drunk, they are in most cases good citizens, excellent 
 fathers of families, charitable as beseems their wealth, foremost in every 
 project for the amelioration of the lot of man, men whom many of you 
 receive into your own families as intimate friends— and with one stroke 
 of the pen you defame them indiscriminately, degrade them by declar- 
 ing them unfit to associate with you in Lodge; besmirch them with an 
 indelible stain. Some of these men your daughters love and marry, and 
 you bless the union; some of these men your State honours by office; 
 some of these men go down to the grave wept by the poor, the widow 
 and the orphan; some of these men we, in England, raise to the ranks 
 of the peerage; oh! you sanctimonious Masons, how good and moral 
 and high toned you must be! 
 
 Doubtless vou have in America blackguards who keep beer saloons of 
 a disreputable sort, and who fatten on the vices of their fellow mortals. 
 So have we in England, but we do not tar the whole trade with one 
 brush. We possess, as you do, the institution of the ballot, and we do, 
 as you should, use it when required, and with discrimination. Your 
 remedy lies ready to your hand, but you prefer to befoul a whole class 
 for the faults of a few of its members. 
 
 And therewith you forget an axiom as old as the hills. " The receiver 
 is worse than the thief." If there were no receivers, there would be no 
 thieves; if there were no moderate drinkers, there would be no brewers; 
 because it is not the small proportion of drunkards in a community 
 which can supply them with a living, let alone great riches. And the 
 majority of you are moderate drinkers, and thus you are the direct cause 
 of existence of the brewers and distillers. You first encourage these 
 men in their atrocious crime of brewing and distilling in order to please 
 vour palates, and then, like so many Pecksniffs, you raise your virtuous 
 hands and eyes to heaven and villify them. There must be a dreadful 
 tarantula loose somewhere, and biting raanv of our brethren in America. 
 Cannot some of vou who are not yet inoculated put your foot down 
 upon it with a great big — squelch? 
 
 One more little growl and I have done. I am afraid as it is. this pro- 
 lix letter will weary vou. There is a brand new doctrine now being for- 
 mulated among you and urged on your acceptance. In view of 
 Reverter- your insatiable appetite for more and ever more legislation, I 
 "charity, really fenr that, monstrous as this doctrine is, it may sooner or 
 later win its way to general adoption. But I sincerely trust not. 
 I allude, of course, to the proposition that relief afforded by Lodge A. 
 to a brother who is a present or former member of Lodge B.. shall be 
 refunded to Lodge A. bv Lodge B. 17 And this the proposers have the 
 effrontery to designate by the sacred name of Masonic Charity! Where 
 does the Charitv come in? Not certainly on the part of Lodge A., be- 
 cause thev exnend nothing. ??ot certainly on the part of Lodge B., be- 
 cause although thev have to pav the piper, thev do not call the tune; 
 the sum expended on their behalf is given without their consent or 
 
12 
 
 knowledge, and perhaps, if previously communicated with, they would 
 have refused to give even a cent. It is reported in English legend 
 that there was once a rare good fellow, although an outlaw, called 
 Robin Hood. It was his pleasant practice to rob any wealthy 
 wayfarer who happened to be passing his road, and to distribute a por- 
 tion of this ill-gotten wealth among the poor of his neighbourhood, by 
 which means he secured their secrecy and aid if he happened at any 
 time to be cornered by the sheriff, and so he got out of many a tight 
 place. But Robin never ventured to take credit for charity on the 
 strength of these proceedings, and certainly nobody ever thought of 
 lauding the charity of the despoiled victims. I do not happen to have 
 a Johnson's dictionary by me, and do not remember how the burly and 
 humourous philosopher defines charity. But were he living in these days 
 and issuing a revised edition of his lexicon, we should doubtless meet 
 some such phrase as this: "Chanty — according to American Freema- 
 sons, an enforced contribution for a good purpose; the act of being ex- 
 cessively generous with other people's money." 
 
 Well, my dear Bro. Upton, 1 have done, and vou will doubtless think 
 that to my jaundiced perceptions there is nothing good in American 
 Freemasonry. If so, you do mean injustice. There is much which I 
 sincerely admire, and were I in a position to visit your Lodges and thus 
 
 become better acquainted with vour inner life, my admiration 
 An en- f j ts gr O0 d qualities would no doubt be considerably enhanced. 
 
 To mention only a few points: I admire intensely the serious 
 way in which you view your duties and responsibilities as Masons, the 
 constant effort to take and preserve a high moral tone. I admire the 
 feeling which leads you to spend enormous sums in order that your 
 Lodges may be decently domiciled. I admire vour generosity in main- 
 taining so many homes and other institutions for the relief of Masonic 
 distress. I admire the combination among you which has permitted 
 you to do so much to stop that curse of the Craft, the tramp Mason. I 
 admire the intelligent interest of your members which suffices to sup- 
 port so many Masonic publications, and to form and keep up such Ma- 
 sonic Libraries as some of your jurisdictions can boast of. 1 envv you 
 the possession of these. And not least, I admire your informal Parlia- 
 ment of the Craft, to which your Reporters on Foreign Correspondence 
 are the delegates. Parliament is perhaps not quite the right word, be- 
 cause a parliament is supposed to possess legislative powers; and to call 
 this combination of well read Masons a debating club will not do, 
 either, because debating clubs are not, as a rule, taken seriously. With 
 all its faults, and I have pointed out a good many such according to our 
 way of thinking, American Masonry must be a grand institution to be 
 capable of impressing upon its members such sentiments as we are ac- 
 customed to listen to when an American Mason visits our Lodges, and 
 "orates" after dinner. Its chiefest fault, I verilv believe, is an itching 
 mania to be always legislating about something or other, the result of 
 which we see in some of those features to which I have alluded in this 
 all too long letter. I think it was Prime Minister Lord Melbourne at 
 the beginning of this reign who, when he was asked, "What shall we do 
 about so and so?" used to reply, "Can't we let it alone?" Now, can not 
 you Americans let Freemasonrv alone for a space and see how it gets on 
 without any more tinkering with the laws and Constitutions? 
 
 ** * * * * * # 
 
 Yours very fraternally, G. W. SPETH. 
 
NOTES 
 
 BY AN AMERICAN MASON. 
 
 i. (Page 2) To make Brother Speth's comments intelligible, it is nec- 
 essary to reprint the following extract from the Washington Correspond- 
 ence Report for 1897, in which the "twelve conclusions" referred to by 
 Brother Speth are set forth: 
 
 "Conclusions which we have reached after what seems to us a full and 
 impartial weighing of all the evidence yet discovered, are as follows: 
 
 "1. That before and after the dawn of history there existed through- 
 out the world — in China as in Central America — -a cult or institution, or 
 descendants of a cult or institution, so similar to Freemasonry that it is 
 most probable that it and Freemasonry were identical or closely related. 
 But absolute proof is wanting. 
 
 "2. That from that cult, or from its source, have sprung institutions, 
 some of which still exist, which were not and were never claimed to be 
 Freemasonry. 
 
 "3. That Freemasonry — our present Fraternity — existed on the con- 
 tinent of Europe- in the Middle Ages. 
 
 "4. That in 1717 there existed on the Continent, organizations bear- 
 ing a very close outward resemblance to Freemasonry — the Steinmetzen 
 in Germany, the Corps d'Etat and Conpanionage in France. 
 
 "5 That these bodies continued to exist long after Freemasonry was 
 carried from the British Isles to the continent; they and Freemasonry 
 never affiliated in any way; and no Masonic Lodge ever claimed to be 
 descended from them (except by asserting that British Masonry de- 
 scended from those bodies, and they— the Lodges — from British Ma- 
 sonry). 
 
 "6. That the theory of descent of British Masonry from said bodies 
 or any of them is entirely exploded. 
 
 "7. That Lodges have existed continuously in England and Scotland 
 and probablv in Ireland, from the Middle Ages to the present day. 
 
 "8. That 'there is not the slightest evidence that a single Lodge ex- 
 isted anywhere outside of the British Isles in i7i7orhad existed for a 
 long time prior thereto. (Query: Did the Reformation gradually put 
 an end to them?) . 
 
 "9. That every Body in the world claiming to be Masonic is descended 
 from some Masonic Bodv which existed in the British Isles in 1717. 
 
 "10 That prior to 1752 the majority of English Lodges were outside 
 of the Grand Lodge system, and had neither charters, warrants, nor 
 
 Grand Masters. , , , , T , 
 
 "11 That long subsequent to 1752 a respectable number of Lodges, 
 independent of Grand Lodges and Grand Masters, existed in the British 
 Isles and were recognised as non-clandestine. 
 
 "12 That down to about the close of the last century it was general- 
 ly recognized, both in Europe and America, among Masons of the Eng- 
 lish Rite that it was possible— though undesirable and contrary to Grand 
 Lodee policy— to form non-clandestine Lodges without authority from 
 Grand Master, Grand Lodge or other external source; and hundreds of 
 
H 
 
 Lodges were so formed; that during the same period, permission froma 
 well established particular Lodge was frequently accepted as sufficient 
 though not the most desirable — authority to form a new Lodge. 
 
 "These propositions are submitted simply because arrived at deliber- 
 ately after some years of study. If any of them are unsound, no one 
 will be more glad to know it than the writer. The 8th and 9th alone 
 bear any close connection to the discussion that suggested them, and it 
 is concerning those two in particular that we should like to be cited to 
 contradictory evidence, if any exists. If the new theory of the descent 
 of English Freemasonry propounded by Brother George W. Speth, , or 
 Lodge Quatuor Coronati, is the true one, it will perhaps be found that 
 the bodies mentioned in No. 4 above were more nearly related to the 
 English guild-masons than to our Fraterniiy." 
 
 These conclusions have attracted an unexpected amount of attention. 
 Other eminent brethren have favored the writer with comments upon 
 them, as follows: 
 
 Robert Freke Gould, the historian of Freemasonry, says:— '-Of Nos. 
 1 and 2,1 say nothing. With Nos. 3, 10 and 11, I disagree. In Nos. 4, 
 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, I concur. No. 12, I consider too broadly expressed." 
 
 William James H'jghan, the doyen of Masonic scholars, writer, "Let 
 me say that vour remarks have my "full sympathy, concerning the origin 
 of our Freemasonry. Truly it is as you state: 'Everything now claim- 
 ing to be Masonry is [or has] sprung from the Masonry of the British 
 Isles.' Dr. Robbins, also, is undoubtedly correct in asserting that 'there 
 is no lawful Masonry anywhere that is not descended from the Free and 
 Accepted Masonry of the British Isles.' 
 
 "Your 12 Propositions are very suggestive, but some of them seem to 
 be a liule weak, e. g., Nos. 10, 11 and 12, or require explanation. The 
 most have mv hearty support, and I hope they will lead to a fraternal 
 discussion and more light." 
 
 Dr. W. J. Chetwode Crawlev, whose Caementaria Hibernica have 
 placed him easily in the first rank of Masonic authorities, writes:— "I 
 had drawn up a baker's dozen of Propositions in my Introduction to Fas- 
 ciculus I of Caem. Hib., where they may be read unto this day: The 
 particular propositions to which you invite attention might be added to 
 my series, so completely do they follow the sequence of thought. The 
 only point on which I would qualify your words is that [in No. 10] 'the 
 majority of Lodges' seems too strong for the case, as I understand the 
 evidence. I believe it to be a., majority of Brethren; hardly of Lodges. 
 With that qualification, I heartily endorse your propositions." 
 
 It will be noticed that '-doctors disagree." 
 
 The Masonic press, too, seems to have been struck by the "conclu- 
 sions," — especially by Nos. 10, n and 12. For example, the London 
 Freemason of October, 1897, contains an editorial leader, more than a 
 page in length, in which, after being mildly facetious as to Nos. 1 and 2, 
 declining to discuss Nos. k, 4, 5 or 6 and approving Nos. 7, 8 and 9, the 
 editor declares that he "should like to hear something of the evidence 
 which has led Bro. Upton to formulate the three conclusions," 10, n 
 and 12. 
 
 While Bro. Upton has not posed as an advocate with a case to make 
 out or with a brief, readv prepared, at his elbow, but rather as a juror 
 giving his verdict from the evidence before him, under ordinary circum- 
 stances he would consider an invitation from so eminent a source as a 
 command, and would perform the gratuitous drudgery of collecting the 
 
15 
 
 evidence, that the skeptical might be convinced. But here, far from the 
 Masonic Library upon which he has been wont to rely — 
 
 "Dura sed emovere loco me tempora grato,"— 
 such a course is impracticable. Let it suffice to say that in No. 10 "ma- 
 jority" must always be a matter of opinion. The writer would be as 
 fully content, with the words "large minority" or with the emendations 
 of Brothers Speth and Crawley. But he maintains-that, with this ex- 
 ception, the statements of Nos. 10, n and 12 — like Brother Speth's re- 
 cent startling statement of the relation of our Fraternity to the Guild 
 masons — are illustrations of how a statement may appear novel to us, al- 
 though upheld by an overwhelming mass of evidence with which we are 
 entirely familiar, in cases where we have read the evidence before we 
 ever thought of the statement; but upon reading the evidence again, we 
 are astonished that we did not see its effect before. Further, that no 
 one need go beyond such well known books as Gould's History of Free- 
 masonry, Sadler's Masonic Facts and Fictions, and Thomas Dunckerley, 
 Crawley's Caementa?Ha Hibernica, and the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum to 
 find evidence ample, unquestionable and superabundant. '-Who hath 
 ears to hear, let him hear." And if a prospectus, recently issued, of 
 Gould's forthcoming History of Military Lodges is not misleading, addi- 
 tional evidence in support of No. 12 will be found in that volume. 
 
 2. fPage 2) There is no difference here between Brother Speth and 
 the writer: Proof is wanting. But evidence is not wanting, by any 
 means. 
 
 3. (Page 2) We do not understand Bro. Speth here. Few have done 
 as much as he to prove that the Cathedral builders of the middle ages 
 were our own Fraternity, and not the Guild masons. Compare, also, 
 Fort's Early History and Antiquities of F. M. 
 
 4. (Page 2) See authorities cited at end of note 1. First, these non- 
 regular Lodges were sufficiently numerous even in London to call for 
 complaint in the Grand Lodge April and November, 1723, February and 
 November, 1724, and March, 1735; and measures were resorted to 
 against them "in or about the year 1739." Second, five or six of them 
 in London formed the Grand Lodge of the Antients in 1752 or 1751. 
 Third, away from our books, we are able to cite, in England alone, the 
 following examples of such Lodges, at the dates mentioned: 
 
 Lodge connected with the Masons Company, London, 1620-1665. 
 Lodge at Warrington, 1646. 
 Lodge at Chester. 1688. 
 Lodge at Alnwick, 1701-1757. 
 Lodge Ht York, 1705-1762. 
 
 Four Old Lodges, London, formed "Modem Grand Lodge, 1717. 
 Lodge of Industry, Gateshead (perhaps at Swalweil, 1690 or 1717), be- 
 came regular 1735. 
 Lodge No. 54, regularized 1728, but "working previously. 
 Lodge at Hexham, 1736. 
 Five Lodges, London, circa, 1735, formed "Ancient Grand Lodge, 
 
 Fourth 5 VA'hese and other non-regular Lodges have left a record, how 
 many were there of whom no recollection remains? If Masonry, before 
 the revival, survived in distant corners of England is there any reason 
 to suppose it ceased to survive after it had become fashionable? In the 
 form of by-laws given in Calcott's Candid Disquisition !, 1769, it will be 
 seen that while visitors from regular Lodges paid one shilling six pence, 
 
i6 
 
 those from these St. John's Lodges were admitted on payment of two shil- 
 lings. A trace of the fact that it took the Masonic conscience a long time 
 to harden itself to deny these brethren survives in the ritual: We still 
 hail from what the Irish call a "hedge Lodge" — "from a Lodge of the 
 holy Saints John at Jerusalem." 
 
 "The word Regular, too, has had a modern connotation attributed to 
 it. * * It simply meant, in the first instance, that the Lodge to which 
 it was applied had come. under the jurisdiction {subreguld) of the 
 Grand Lodge, in contradistinction to Lodges which had not submitted 
 themselves. These latter Lodges were not necessarily clandestine or ir- 
 regular. They were only non-regular, in that they were outside the ju- 
 risdiction of the recently formed Grand Lodge. But many, with hasty 
 judgment, have assumed that all brethren who, in those early days, were 
 not Regular must be irregular; a judgment very far from the truth. 
 
 "Evidence of the existence of non-Regular Lodges has multiplied of 
 late years." — Caementaria Hibernica, Fasciculus Secundus, Supplement, 4. 
 
 5. (Page 3) Conclusion 12 was not limited to British Masons, and 
 referred to practices more common on the continent, though by brethren 
 of the so-called English Rite. Yet instances were numerous in America,. 
 for examples of which it may possibly be safe to trust a defective mem- 
 ory so far as to refer to an early Lodge in Albany, N. Y., and the Lodge 
 in Virginia in which Washington was made a Mason. >.'ot to mention 
 Kilwinning Mother Lodge and the Mother Lodges of Germany, who will 
 venture to deny that numerous Lnglish and Irish military Lodges con- 
 tinually issued copies of their own warrants as sufficient authority to 
 new Lodges to work? 
 
 6. (Page 5) It may not be impertinent to remark that American Ma- 
 sons did not invent their strict notions about physical qualifications, 
 but received them from Great Britain and Ireland ; also, that the much 
 derided and not very happy expression, "A perfect Youth," did not orig- 
 inate in America, but in the Charges of a Free- Mason. While there is 
 probably not a Lodge in America which would initiate a castrate, there 
 are few which would go so far as did the Stewards' Lodge of the An- 
 cients, in 1784, when it rejected the petition for relief of a member of 
 Lodge 81. declaring that, "being lame and otherwise disfigured at the 
 time of being made, he ought not to be relieved"! 
 
 It may be noted, also, that while in America there is a tendency 
 towards technical construction, to exalt the letter of the law — of every 
 law— above its spirit, and to strain after forced and unwarranted conclu- 
 sions — as, for example, where we have evoked the dogma of "jurisdiction 
 over rejected candidates" from the charge that -a brother shall not "sup- 
 plant" another "or put him out of his work," and have based our denial 
 of the rights of brotherhood to the non-affiliate on the casual remark 
 that "every brother ought to belong to" a Lodge, — there has always been 
 in England a corresponding tendency, no less marked and very clearly 
 pointed out in Brother Sadler's "Masonic Facts and Fictions" and Bro- 
 ther Crawley's " Caementaria Hibernica," towards laxity, and inatten- 
 tion to the requirements of the law. Early in the seventeenth century — 
 if we may rely upon the expert paleographists of the British Museum, or 
 somewhat later, others have thought — this tendency had been so disas- 
 trous to the Craft that some of the brethren thought it necessary to enact 
 the stringent requirements of the "New Articles" or "Additional Orders." 
 Then the tendency continued its corroding work for another century, 
 with the result that the revival of 1716-17 became necessary to save Lon- 
 
17 
 
 don Masonry from extinction. Another century of the same tendency— 
 during which she had sent Masonry into Germany with the signs of the 
 first and second degrees reversed and, apparently, without the secrets of 
 the chair— forced the premier Grand Lodge to confess, in 1809 and 1810, 
 that she had been neglecting at least one of the "Land Marks," and to 
 declare that it was " not necessary any longer to continue in Force those 
 Measures * * * resorted to in or about the year 1739" and to "enjoin 
 the several Lodges to revert to the Ancient Land Marks of the Society." 
 
 Will the lapse of another century bring another revival, say in 1910 or 
 1917, and a return to the ideas as to physical qualifications which pre- 
 vailed in England a century and more ago? 
 
 Hardly stopping to point out, as Brother Speth would be the first to 
 concede, that it is highly erroneous to assume that the B'raternity was 
 chiefly an operative one in 1723 when Anderson's "perfect Youth" rule 
 was approved, or had been wholly operative within several centuries prior 
 to that, it may be remarked that the Craft will probably be more profit- 
 ed when brethren cease wrangling over what they think the law of the 
 Institution ought to be, on this subject, and seek to learn what it is. 
 This no one has yet done. Exprefsirig no opinion of my own — for, as 
 yet, I have none, — I may observe that the "youth" who was required to 
 be "perfect" was the apprentice; and that Anderson's second edition 
 clearly reveals that in 1723 and 1738 the apprtntice was not a Freemason, 
 even ''of the lowest degree." Furthermore, that while the earliest version 
 of the manuscript charges has a charge regulating the physical qualifica- 
 tions of an apprentice, it has none relative to those of a Mason. The 
 original form of the former appears to have been: — 
 
 "And the apprentice to be able, of birth freeborn, and of limbs whole 
 as a man ought to be." 
 
 And that of the latter: — 
 
 "And he that shall be made Mason be able, of degree freeborn and no 
 bondsman, and that he have his right limbs as a man ought to have." 
 See Masonic Code of Washington, pp. 185, 186. 
 
 Proper study may also disclose that the rule— whatever it is— is not a 
 law of Masonry because it was put in the Charges, but was put in the 
 Charges because it was a law: and that it has its foundation in an occult 
 but none the less real law of nature, upon which was based, also, the 
 requirement of the Jewish law, that no one with a blemish could serve at 
 the holy altar: 
 
 "For whatsoever man that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a 
 blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, 
 or a man that is brokenfooted. or brokenhanded, or crookbact, or a 
 dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath 
 his stones broken." — Lev. xxi. 18-20. 
 
 7. fPa°-e s) "All preferment among Masons is grounded upon real- 
 Worth and' personal Merit only; * * * Therefore no Master or 
 Warden is chosen by Seniority, but for his Merit."— The Charges of a 
 Free-Mason, 172^. , . 
 
 8. (Page 6) So lavish are the Masters of Israel in their use of their 
 assumed "dispensing power," that if Brother Spkth is willing to cross the 
 briny deep in order to traverse the burning sands and join the Shnners, 
 it would be almost safe to guarantee him the requisite "high degrees, in 
 either Rite, within thirtv-six hours after he lands in America. 
 
 9. (Page 6) Brother Speth here seems to have overlooked the ditter- 
 ence between our rule, as to residence qualification, for initiation, and 
 that for affiliation. As to candidates for initiation, Pennsylvania and a 
 few other jurisdictions have modified the old law only so far as to require 
 
residence within the state — giving all their Lodges concurrent jurisdic- 
 tion; and the Grand Lodge of Washington now has under considera- 
 tion a proposal to abolish even that requirement, (Proceedings, 1897, pp. 
 159, 204.) The other Grand Lodges require the candidate to apply to 
 the nearest Lodge, except that in cities he may usually apply to any 
 Lodge in the city, and in some jurisdictions he may apply to a more dis- 
 tant Lodge with the consent of the one nearest his residence. In most 
 parts of America, outside of our cities there are rarely two Lodges near 
 enough the candidate's residence to cause him to desire to join any but 
 the one nearest him. So that the very few instances in which our rule 
 works a hardship are probably far over-balanced by the protection it 
 affords the' fraternity against the admission of unworthy men. For 
 instance, we escape the charge which is emphatically made against sev- 
 eral old Lodges in the seaports of Scotland, that they are constantly 
 making Masons of the very dregs of humanity — among transient sea- 
 faring men, — apparently solely for financial considerations, and grossly 
 inadequate ones at that. 
 
 But for affiliation, it is believed that not more than two or three 
 American Grand Lodges require any residence qualificaiion whatever. 
 California seems to demand that resident unaffiliated Masons shall affil- 
 iate with her Lodges onlv, but her requirement is rightly disregarded, 
 both by such Masons and by Lodges in other states; for she has no 
 legislative jurisdiction over either the one or the other of these. 
 
 10. (Page 7) The Mason who would probablv be styled by general 
 consent the foremost authority in America on Masonic jurisprudence 
 has, in effect, branded the writer of this note, and numerous other wriiers 
 of correspondence reports, as ignoramuses because we have contended 
 for the sound views as to the right to black-ball and the effect of a rejec- 
 tion here enunciated by Brother Speth. Some of us draw consolation 
 from the fact that our censor is the brother who declared, a few years ago. 
 that "many Companions err, in undertaking to test Masonic questions by 
 actual history instead of by traditional history"! — Proc. Gr. Chapter, 
 Maine, ix, 306. 
 
 n. (Page 8) The inherent right of Masons to form a Lodge without 
 external authority would appear to be dormant rather than extinct. 
 
 12. (Page 8) From the Netherlands precedent — the oldest in exist- 
 ence, — Brother Speth might have demonstrated even more clearly the 
 utter untenability of the position taken by American Grand Lodges— for 
 example, In their controversy with the Grand Lodge of Hamburg — that 
 a Grand Lodge can obtain exclusive jurisdiction of particular territory, 
 as against another Grand Lodge, without the consent of the latter: that 
 is, that exclusive territorial jurisdiction is inherent in a Grand Lodge 
 and is not dependent on the comity of other Grand Lodges. Masonry 
 was introduced into Holland in 1731. There was a Lodge there in 1734. 
 called the Loge du Grand Maitre, which in 1749 became the "Union 
 Mother-Lodge." In 1756 fourteen Lodges formed the Grand Lodge of 
 the Netherlands. Yet England continued to warrant Lodges in the 
 Netherlands from 1735 to 1769. In 1770 the Grand Master of the Neth- 
 erlands wrote to England "promising that on condition the Grand 
 Lodge of England did not in future constitute any new Lodges within 
 his jurisdiction, the Grand Lodge of Holland should observe the same 
 restriction with respect to all parts of the world where Lodges were 
 established under the patronage of England." This was agreed to; 
 and this agreement — treaty — and not anv imaginary law of "Grand 
 Lodge Sovereigntv," is the only thing which prevents those Grand 
 Lodges from rightfully erecting new Lodges in each other's country. In 
 
19 
 
 other words, Masonic history discloses that a Grand Lodge possesses 
 just such degree of exclusive territorial jurisdiction as other Grand 
 Lodges are willing to concede to her; and that the so-called "American 
 doctrine" is fancitul, unhristoric and modern. 
 
 13. (Page 9) Under the treaty mentioned in the preceding note, Eng- 
 land would have been justified in excluding that one Grand Lodge — 
 Holland — from the Cape Colony; but the cool way in which English 
 Masons calmly assume that the Grand Lodges of England, Scotland 
 and Ireland, taken together, have exclusive jurisdiction in Masonic- 
 ally unorganized parts of the British Empire is sufficiently astonish- 
 ing. What greater right has the Grand Lodge of England in Western 
 Australia, for example, than the Grand Lodge of British Columbia? 
 Each of them is a Grand Lodge in, but neither ot them of, the British 
 Empire, as we understand the case. Alaska, although in the United 
 States, is "open territory" — open to all the Grand Lodges of the world. 
 Is Klondike — unless, indeed, it chances to be within territory heretofore 
 claimed by one of the Canadian Grand Lodges — any less so? I doubt 
 whether any American Grand Lodge would admit it. 
 
 14. (Page 9) Most of the preposterous doctrines which have gradually 
 grown up around the phrases "Grand Lodge Sovereignty" and "exclusive 
 territorial jurisdiction" are sufficiently absurd; but the extreme of Grand 
 Lodge Sovereignty here referred to by Brother Speth is an illustration 
 of theorizing run mad; and there have always been conservative Amer- 
 icans who rejected it. "It is not within the power of any Grand Lodge," 
 said Thomas Milburne Reed in 1880, "to force allegiance to its authority 
 from a subordinate not of its creation, nor to sever the relations of such 
 subordinate from its parent Grand Body. * * * The sooner 
 Grand Lodges understand this question the better." Attempts like the 
 recent one of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, referred to in the next note, to 
 brand as clandestine or irregular those Lodges in Mexico which refuse 
 to come under the jurisdiction of the Gran Dieta, will be regretted in 
 America as keenh. if not as universally, as elsewhere. 
 
 15. (Page 9) Of the five Grand Lodges which have recognized the 
 Gran Dieta, onlv the last one — Iowa— has gone to the extreme of declar- 
 ing her the sole legitimate Grand Body in Mexico, or casting any reflec- 
 tion on the bodies in Mexico, claiming to be Masonic, not of her obedi- 
 ence;— bodies with which, in point of numbers, age or reputation, she 
 and her subordinates are not to be compared. It may be that the influ- 
 ences which led Texas, New York, North Dakota and Kansas to recog- 
 nize the Gran Dieta mav hereafter induce them to take the additional 
 and wholly unjustifiable step taken by Iowa. But there is no logical 
 connection between recognition of legitimacy and recognition of exclu- 
 sive jurisdiction All the American Grand Lodges recognize the Grand 
 Lodge of Quebec and most of those in Australia; but not one of them, 
 it is believed, questions the regularity of the Lodges which England 
 maintains in Quebec and Australia. Surely, after the scores of lessons it 
 has had in the matter of a plurality of Grand Lodges in one country, 
 from the "revival" of the Grand Lodge of All England at York in 1725 
 to the recognition, by the Grand Lodge of Canada in Ontario in 1896, of 
 brethren made in Lodges of the late alleged-to-be-spurious Grand Lodge 
 of Ontario, American Masonrv ought to be prepared to accent the ver- 
 dict of history, "That two rival Grand Bodies may exist side by side in 
 the same State, neither of them clandestine in any proper sense of the 
 word, each irregular from the point of view of the other and under its 
 laws, but both entirely regular so far as concerns the rest of the Masonic 
 world." 
 
20 
 
 i6. (Page 9) It can not be doubted that.during the last two generations 
 there has been a tendency in Grand Lodges to usurp powers at the ex- 
 pense of the Lodges, and to make hard and fast rules upon subjects 
 which ought to be left to the discretion of each particular Lodge, it not 
 to that of each individual Mason. 
 
 "Drink legislation," in American Grand Lodges, falls chiefly under 
 five heads: 
 
 1. Some jurisdictions, it is believed, forbid the use of malt or spirit- 
 uous liquors at Lodge banquets, or their purchase with Lodge funds. 
 The attempt to defend this has been placed upon the ground that the 
 use of liquors is immoral, or that Lodge funds are dedicated to charity; 
 but, more plausibly, on the fact that the great majority of American 
 Masons are not wont to drink wine at dinner, and that there are, in every 
 Lodge, some to whom the presence of wine is a dangerous temptation. 
 
 2. Some jurisdictions, including Washington, merely forbid ihe intro- 
 duction of intoxicants into the Lodge room, or an adjoining room. This 
 may be on the theory that, if there is to be any excess, Masonry will be 
 less liable to be censured if it takes place away from the Lodge, and in 
 public instead of behind tiled doors. 
 
 3. Some jurisdictions declare that no petition for the degrees shall be 
 received from one engaged in the manufacture or sale of intoxicants; 
 and this bar has been held to apply to commercial travelers and to stock- 
 holders in brewing corporations. Even more vital than the objections 
 to this pointed out by Brother Speth, is, in the opinion of the writer, the 
 fact that it conflicts with two of the Landmarks of Masonry. The latter 
 prescribe what the qualification of a candidate shall be: this ventures, to 
 demand an additional qualification. The Landmarks, also, repose in 
 the members of the Lodge *o which a candidate, who possesses all the 
 qualifications prescribed by the fundamental law of the Institution, ap- 
 plies, the exclusive right to determint whether or not they will make him 
 a Mason. This legislation deprives them of that right, and would seem 
 to be an innovation on the body of Masonry. 
 
 4. Certain jurisdictions have declared that for one who is already a 
 Mason to engage in the manufacture or sale of intoxicants shall be 
 deemed a Masonic offense, and shall subject him to punishment. Such 
 legislation is ex post facto, deprives a Mason of vested rights, and violates 
 the assurance that was given him before he touk his first obligation. It 
 is advocated by that class of brethren who assume that everything which 
 seems to them promotive of morality ought to be engrafted upon Ma- 
 sonry. They ignore the fact that such legislation ignores Masonic history 
 and asperses the Masonic worthiness of thousands of Masons now dead 
 as well as of those. living in other lands; and, while loudly declaiming 
 that -''Masonry is a system of morality," they forget that it is a svstem 
 which is or ought to be the same yesterday, today and forever and in all 
 lands, and one upon which they have not Ihe slightest right to engraft 
 the slightest change. 
 
 5. A single jurisdiction— and, so far as the writer knows, but one — 
 provides that certain members of a Lodge may manufacture and sell in- 
 toxicants, while the other members shall not. Upon what theory this 
 law is upheld, or how it would strike an English critic, the writer is not 
 informed. 
 
 17. (Page n) This theory of relief— commonly called the Wisconsin 
 theory— has been very generally condemned, during the last few years, 
 throughout the United States, and has found lodgment in only three or 
 four Grand Lodges. 
 
PAMPHLET BINDER 
 
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 Cornell University Library 
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 An English view of freemasonry ; n lAmeric 
 
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