IS FREEMASONRY A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION? THE EDITOR.

THE AMERICAN FREEMASON, AUGUST 1914

THE ideal system of government for the Masonic institution has not yet
been evolved, if we are to regard suggestions made by brothers to amend
or modify the existing plan.  Not all, nor even many, of the reforming
schemes are worth attention.  They are seldom based upon any real
knowledge of Masonic history.  Nor has it been considered necessary for
the would-be reformers, generally speaking, to concern themselves with the
proper purposes of the fraternity.  Like the Dutchman's wooden pig-trough,
the proposed improvements are products of their own heads.  It is well that
Freemasonry is of tough texture and conservative in grain, or otherwise it
might by this time have been gnarled and twisted beyond hope of future
symmetry.  It is true that there may be, from very exuberance of growth, an
advantage in judicious pruning and the cutting back of erratic or too
ambitious branches.  And there is vast difference between the ignorant
conceit of that one who would hack and hew indiscriminately, with hope to
shape the whole system to his liking, and that other who seeks to develop
here and to repress there, with intention that the original symmetry shall not
be marred.

The present writer, though by some accounted unduly radical, is by no
means alone in emphatic condemnation of certain recent developments in
the government of American Freemasonry. There are, in the Craft as in this
republic of ours, two opposed schools of thought and opinion.  The one
urges and works for an ever greater centralization of power.  The other
would restore a condition firmly existing, which allowed wide latitude of
initiative and action to the constituent bodies and individual brothers.  The
first are earnest in belief that the true purposes of the institution can be best
served if under control of a comparatively few men, and these removed so
far as possible from criticism and direct responsibility to those they rule. 
The others, equally earnest, argue for a flexible organization, in which every
part has freedom of function, limited only by the well-being of the whole. 
The hair-brained "reformers," mostly extremists from both the schools, may
well be neglected in this connection, as being without appreciable influence
in the world of Craft. They mean no more in Masonry than do the social
dissidents who present their impossible Utopias as substitutes for the
admittedly imperfect schemes of government that are, as yet, the best that
society can safely frame.

To gain any correct opinion, as between the two sets of controversialists,
would involve an extended inquiry into the history of the Craft.  It would
also necessitate a discussion as to Masonic purpose, whether as set forth
in the basic documents of organized being, or as logically developed by
the growth of the fraternity in a broadening time, and its inclusion among
the forces of an advancing civilization. Yet it may be said, in passing, that
but few of those who are loudest in argument, whether for or against any
extension of Grand Lodge powers, have other basis for opinion than their
own interests or prejudices or friendships, or even mere impulses.

Leaving, in this present paper, such desirable inquiry, we come to the
question which gives caption hereto: "Is Freemasonry a Democratic
Institution?" Any answer, even to this limited query, will not only involve
opinion as to present conditions, but must also include judgment as to the
intention of those who reorganized or revived the Craft in the eighteenth
century.  It might not be amiss, at the outset, to ask whether there has ever
been a truly democratic government as applied to other than very small
communities.  In fact, any definition of such government would be sufficient
to prove its impossibility where large numbers of citizens join to form a
political unit.  A series of eliminations and ascending representative
arrangements result at last, and of necessity, in a centralization of the
prerogatives of rule.  These, of course, may be strictly limited or purposely
left vague and uncertain; they may be closely grasped in the hands of a
few, or apportioned among a comparatively large number of officials.  The
fathers of the American Republic, by a system of checks and balances
sought to prevent the undue predominance of any department of the
national government, thus hoping to establish and maintain what they
believed to be a real democratic institution.  Yet it is evident that the
founders of the United States had but scant confidence in those whom later
times would designate as the democracy.  Other checks were invented and
skilfully interposed between the people and those chosen to govern.  Some
of them, after long struggle, and a continued insistence of the masses,
have been removed.  Others remain, to furnish themes for demagogues
and self-seeking  politicians.

Thus it must bc acknowledged that the truly democratic ideal of
government is unattainable.  We are forced to accept the modified and
conventional systems, designated as democratic, as furnishing the
definition we desire.  But was it even such a democracy that the founders
of modern Freemasonry sought to establish? It needs but slight
acquaintance with the political and social ideas and ideals of the early
eighteenth century to arrive at conclusion that while a distinct advance was
projected in the Masonic Constitutions, yet the conception of democracy
was still nearly a century in the future.  The basis of association was
broadened, and the kinship of men was given new emphasis, but the
method of rule was no other than a limited and strictly constitutional
monarchy.  It was as if, in the England of that day, the various legal
discriminations between citizens, which set up divisions based on race and
religion and political partisanship, had been removed, the kingly powers
remaining as before.

We must allow that in this our Masonic forefathers were wise.  There were
then, as now, feather-headed theorists in plenty, to propose a levelling
down rather than upward; who proclaimed in various absurd ways and with
demagogic vehemence of speech the superior rights of the ignorant and
incompetent classes, and otherwise sought to subvert the established
order.  These, like their kind of the present, were unable to understand that
society is ever in process of change; that it is fluidic, not fixed, and that the
pressure of changing time will sooner or later accomplish in safety that
which the radicals would urge by the dangerous methods of sudden or
revolutionary shifts.  Englishmen of the educated class, such as were
movers in reorganization of the Craft, and who prepared the Constitutions
by which the society was to be governor could not be expected to
formulate a system other than one that would give large - almost unlimited
- powers into the hands of the Grand Master.  Though the first choice of a
brother to fill the Grand East of the Mother body fell to a simple and
obscure "gentleman," and this of necessity, yet it was intended that one of
the nobility should head the fraternity. (1) It was necessary to put a showing
of great-

(1) No brother can be....... Grand Master unless he has been a Fellow Craft
before his Election, who is also to be nobly born, or a Gentleman of the
best Fashion, or some eminent Scholar, or some curious Architect, or other
Artist, descended of honest parents, and who is of singular great Merit in
the Opinion of the Lodges. - CHARGES OF A FREEMASON,
CONSTITUTIONS OF 1723

est dignity and prerogative upon the office to secure the adhesion of titled
individuals.  It is safe to say that much of what is written and unwritten, as
pertaining to the powers of Grand Masters, would never have been heard
of had the custom prevailed from the first in England, as later in America
and elsewhere, of choosing the Grand Master from among the rank and file
of the Craft.  So far, therefore, as English usage is concerned, we can at
once answer that Freemasonry is and never has been a democratic
institution.  The chief honours of the Craft are there a minor appanage of
royalty, and the society is in fact a school for the cultivation of loyalty, with
a constant expression of devotion to the throne, that to others may
sometimes smack of servility.  The further inquiry is to the changes that
may have been wrought in the institution by its transplanting and firm
rooting in a country where different social and political ideals prevail.

The original American colonies, peopled almost entirely by those of English
birth or descent, and having long been a part of the British empire,
received from thence their ideas of government and their various
institutions, Freemasonry included. Up to the time of the Revolution the
colonists were to the full as loyal as their insular fellows.  In accepting
authorization for the establishment of Masonic Lodges, they took over
without question the English methods of Craft rule, and the rather
grandiose and exaggerated ideas as to the dignities and powers of Grand
Masters.  It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the older settled
portions of what is now the United States should have retained, even after
political independence was achieved, much that had been inherited from
the Mother Country.  Nor is it a matter of surprise, to one informed, that the
Freemasonry of the erstwhile colonies does, until the present time, hold to
the somewhat inflated prerogatives of Grand Masters.  In only a lesser
degree they insist upon the supremacy of Grand Lodges in any and every
matter that can affect the constituent bodies or the brothers.  Masonry is an
ultra-conservative organization, and whatever is fixed upon it and has
become matter of usage is very difficult to remove or modify, even to
admitted advantage.

But the younger American communities, heterogenous in composition, free
from the memories of a former political connection, and forced by the
necessities of time and place to work out their own theories of government
and to establish social ideals for themselves, were not willing to continue
traditions satisfying to the older commonwealths.  The very freedom of
men's lives in new and rude surroundings engendered an impatience with
many of the conventionalities that had purpose only to trammel human
intercourse and sympathy, and the forced merging of all class distinctions
fostered the idea of equality until it became a passion with the hardy men
of the middle west.  We find this reflected in custom and laws, and it also
had influence in Masonry.  The fundamental idea of the equality and kinship
of men, as set forth in the Craft, found ready and hearty response in this
section of the country.  To such brothers as were of pioneer times in these
central states the status of Grand Masters, regarded as far beyond their
fellows, with unlimited powers and surpassing dignity, was not tenderly
regarded.  So the Constitutions of Masonry, as arranged for one after
another of the later formed jurisdictions, specially restricted the prerogatives
of such officials.  The Constitutions of Iowa (1844) provides that the Grand
Master "is entitled to all the privileges and prerogatives which attach to his
office by the ancient usages of Freemasonry, subject to the limitations of
this Constitution and the requirements of the jurisdiction, as expressed by
law." Others of near date employ similar language.  There is a variety in the
privileges allowed and those denied, as one or another set of men
arranged the regulations.  But all the American Grand Lodges, established
near the middle of the nineteenth century, were alike in restricting the chief
office, and in bringing the Grand Mastership under control of the body by
which the place was filled.  The very direct opposite to the English
sentiment and usage had been reached.  In so far as such an institution as
Masonry could be inclined to the democratic ideal, that point had been
reached at the period named.  And this is further seen in the very wide
latitude given the Lodges.  The codes were brief and simple, and but few
restrictions were placed on the absolute freedom of the constituents.  They
were supposed to be able to govern themselves, and to care for their own
interests without constant interference of the governing body in every action
or function.

Our inquiry next reveals a period of active law-making and of official
encroachment.  Masonry had become a popular body, and its adherents
were numerous in the various jurisdictions.  Gains of many sorts were
supposed to attach to the holding of chief or high office in the Craft.  Thus
the politician fancied it to his interest to be known favourably to the Masons
within his state.  The Past Grand Masters, and later other Past Officers,
were made "permanent members" of Grand Lodge, with voice and vote. 
These in truth represent nothing but their own official caste and interests,
and to invest them permanently with the right to vote was the first serious
step to taking proper control from the Lodges.  What was at first an honest
effort to provide for a council of experienced brothers to aid the officers in
charge in the conduct of Craft affairs, soon developed in the formation of
an inner circle, to which entrance was closely guarded.  The influence
wielded by these is in some cases such that the mere representatives of
the Lodges can not hope to pass any measure unless approved by the
coterie in control.  They have manipulated so well, in some of the
jurisdictions, that all places of account are filled from their number, and
reports of the various committees are so framed that little comes before
Grand Lodge but has passed their previous inspection.  This encroachment
can further be measured by the restrictions of many kinds enacted into
legislation, designed to limit the freedom of the Lodges, and to establish a
supervision so minute that even correspondence between Master Masons
of different jurisdictions must pass through official hands.

These extreme conditions do not obtain in all American Grand Lodges.  I
have been frequently assured by indignant brothers that in their
jurisdictions, at least, there is no showing of the "ring." But I am giving the
extremes, to show the extent of departure from the once generally accepted
ideas of Masonry.  Nor am I arguing here for any system, or against any
development that may have showing in American Grand Lodges.  The initial
question comes again for answer.  In the light of such inquiry as can be
here briefly outlined, the answer must thus be expressed: Masonry from the
first was not designed as a democratic institution, nor could it have
achieved its best purposes had it not been strictly governed and without
the intervention of the Craft in general.  For a time, with a peculiarly
self-reliant membership in the middle west of the United States, it came
nearest to the ideal democracy.  The last state, as it has showing in the
American Craft, is not even truly representative.  It can best he expressed,
and this without condemnation, as being oligarchical.

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