THE BUILDER APRIL 1915

PIKE, THE PATRIOT

BY LILIAN PIKE ROOME

(The following extracts from the unpublished writings of Albert
Pike, made by his daughter, are doubly timely in view of the
growing agitation in behalf of a more adequate national defense. It
is one thing to prepare for war, and another and wiser thing to
prepare for peace, and it was the latter which Pike had in mind.
His words reveal a noble patriotic faith in the future of the
Republic, with which was united a like vivid faith in the
world-conquering spirit of Masonry.)

THE question whether we have an adequate national defense has been
answered in the negative by those best qualified to speak with
authority, the highest officers of the army and navy; and their
dictum has not been disputed by any military expert. When they
assert that we have no adequate defense, they mean, not only great
lack of soldiers, but of nearly all munitions such as are in use
now by other nations, and more especially of war craft, whether sea
craft or airships.

If the allies all combined are scarcely able to withstand the
impact of the Germans and their allies, how could we cope with even
one of those nations? Yet we, who are said to be the richest nation
in the world, are higgling over appropriations for a much smaller
force and very much fewer supplies of armaments and munitions than
even one of the smaller countries of Europe.

Another thing I cannot understand is, how an American can say that
all wars are wicked, since we exist as a free nation only by virtue
of the War of the Revolution: nor indeed, how he can condemn any
war that ever has been waged by the United States.

As my greatest inspiration was derived from my father, I bring to
my support some utterances which I have culled from his writings,
which show very plainly what his views would be in this present
crisis, if he were alive today. His words would appeal to all
patriots, therefore they ought to appeal to all true Masons.

Expansion.

"As the United states has by express grant the power to declare and
wage war and to make peace, I find no difficulty in holding that it
may by treaty of peace extend its frontier by the acquisition of
new territory, in order to protect itself by a line more easily
defended; or may acquire islands in the ocean to serve it as
outposts and fortresses. If, in doing so, it finds within its
territorial limits large masses of people unfit for
self-government, I think it perfectly competent for it to govern
them and legislate for them as provincials. I should have thought
that nothing could be more clearly within its powers than the
acquisition of Louisiana and of the mouth of the Mississippi, or
the purchase of California and the Pacific Coast. I see no
objection to the purchase of the Isthmus between the two
continents, and of any or all of the West India islands, and no
reason why it may not have colonies as well as any other nation.
All such powers were certainly possessed by each state, and as
certainly they do not possess them now, and they are not reserved
to the people.

"So, again, I think that it has the power to impose a tariff on
particular articles of manufacture or production, when a permanent
home supply of those articles is necessary to our safety and
success in case of war; and that it may do this in peace, in order
to provide for a state of war, just as it may raise, equip, arm,
and keep on foot an army and navy in time of peace, in order to be
at all times prepared for war."

National Defense.

"By way of provision for the national defense in case of war, I do
not doubt it may in time of peace build military roads for the
conveyance of troops and muniments of war, as well across as
outside of the states, and even beyond its own territory, nor that
it may, to secure greater speed of movement, and facility and
cheapness of transportation, lay down rails of iron upon the road
so constructed. I do not see why it may not as well do that as
build a frigate in advance.

"When it was reported that British vessels had fired upon and
insulted our flag in the Gulf of Mexico, it was seen how completely
the nation had but one heart and one soul, notwithstanding its
petty domestic heart-burnings and squabbles. None anywhere paused
to ask from what ports, north or south, the vessels sailed, but one
outcry of indignation was heard, from the Aroostook to the Sabine,
at the insult and indignity offered our flag, * * * but whenever a
hostile hand approaches that flag to desecrate it, every heart in
the Union will rally to it, and every hand be raised to defend it."

The Union.

"If the Fathers did not mean that we should be one nation, they
should never have adopted a national flag, for, I think, none ever
served under that flag in the sunny land of Mexico, or on the
ocean, who did not feel with a conviction more potent than all the
arguments and logic of statesmen could produce, that we are one
nation, in name, fame and destiny; who did not feel that our
national motto: 'E Pluribus Unum'--ONE, made up of many--was a true
definition of the nature of our government: the manifold welded
into one-- Oneness grown out of the manifold: who did not proudly
exult at the greatness and glory of that one country, and answer
cheerily to the name of Yankee, in whatever corner of the Republic
he had chanced to be born. No American, I think, ever saw that
glorious flag in a foreign port, fluttering at the masthead of even
the most insignificant vessel, without a thrill of excitement and
exultation and gladness at the sight--without stepping a little
more haughtily and firmly at the thought of his country across the
ocean. One flag makes us one nation. No matter whether it was so
intended or not; inevitably it is felt to be so, and every war we
pass through renders that feeling more irresistible. * * *

"Our Republic is fast arriving at colossal greatness, and the
shadow of her power already reaches the shores of Europe, of which
steam and the Telegraph are fast making her a part. We are
beginning to assert our right, while denying our inclination, to
interfere in the affairs of that Continent: and there are many
possible contingencies in which we might be compelled to do so. In
a long continued conflict among the great Powers of Europe, such as
seems now approaching, we shall find it difficult to maintain our
neutrality. * * * The United States considers as settled, so far as
it is concerned, certain principles as to neutrality, claimed by it
to form a part of the international law, which the greatest
Maritime Powers of Europe deny: this, of itself, would soon push us
into a war, perhaps with two or three nations at once.

"For we should not recede from the positions we have deliberately
assumed in the face of the world. Having announced those contested
principles as, in our judgment, settled, we should not yield them
up to force. On that there would not be a dissenting vote in
America. To recede is to be dishonored, and to invite new
aggression. And, if these principles can in no other way be written
on the pages of the great book of the law of Nations, they must be
written there in blood, amid the thunder of Republican guns. * * *

"The phrase sounds strangely now, I know; but once it was held to
be the noblest fortune that could befall a man, to die for his
country; and then were men capable of great and lofty deeds. Once
the sentiment, 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,' was not
bombast, but the expression of a living truth.

"To toil, to incur hazard, to die, for one's country, without hope
of pay or reward, is the noblest aspiration and ambition of a
freeman. * * * The Republic grateful to those who have served it,
ought to see it to that they or their widows and children do not
languish and suffer in penury and destitution."

Masonry.

"So may our beloved Order grow and expand, till many a nation
stands within the great circle of its shade. * * *

"Long after we are gathered to our fathers, and our names have
ceased to be remembered on this earth and our bones have mouldered
to a little dust, and the flowers have bloomed and faded upon our
graves for a thousand years, will come the noonday of our Order.

"Then, the Union of these states still unbroken, and as dear to our
descendants as it now is to us--no column of the great Temple of
Liberty fallen to decay or shattered by the rude hand of violence
or time, the flag of the Union, 'one and indivisible,' floating
over a nation mightier than Imperial Rome--then will our Order have
made the circle of the Globe and planted her Colonies in every
country and on all the islands of the sea; then will her tents
whiten ten thousand plains, gleam on the green shoulders of the
hills, and cast down their peaceful shadows upon the clear running
waters; and then will millions of Brothers, speaking many a tongue,
meet and commune in peace and harmony, and the Destiny of the Order
be fulfilled: and then, when the people of the Great Republic have
added many a new star to the proudest flag that ever flew with or
against the wind, and the millions of its freemen are counted not
by scores, but by hundreds, then shall our remote descendants,
gazing back through the long aisles of the receding years, thank
us, their forefathers, first and chiefly of all, that when the
storm roared and the winds blew, and the temple of our freedom and
our Union quivered to its deep foundations, we shrank not from the
bitter anger of the elements, but preserved for them, and handed
down unimpaired, the blessings of that freedom and that Union,
God's inestimable gift to our forefathers: and next, that we were
instrumental in enlarging the bonds and perpetuating the existence
of an Order which, gaining strength by time, will have proved a
blessing to the world, second only to the truths of religion and
the rich inheritance of Liberty."

