The Building and Maintaining of the Ship of State. A Study in Masonic Citizenship

 

Grand Oration of 1923 - By M. A. Childers

Most Worshipful Grand Master, Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Master, Right Worshipful Grand Senior and Junior Wardens, and Brethren, of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Texas:  

No great edifice, whether it be ship or temple, bridge, or castle, is ever successfully constructed except in accordance with some well-defined plans, drawn by competent architects, with some prototype as a guide, either already in existence, or wrought out in the artist's mind.

The plans for our Ship of State were drawn by Master Masons, upon a Masonic trestle-board with the spirit of Masonry as a prototype.  The spirit of Masonry is characterized by three outstanding attributes,

viz:

1. An unyielding demand for truth and justice.

2. An unwavering protest against all wrongs and all forms of intolerance and injustice of whatsoever kind or character; and

3. An unfaltering trust in and devotion to Almighty God.  The nation that possesses these qualities in its governmental fabric, and exhibits them in its political operation, approaches nearest the Masonic ideal; and the nation whose citizens exemplify in their lives and conduct these same qualities is a nation that will weather the storms.  Masonic citizenship, therefore, is the art of building and maintaining a nation based upon the spirit of Masonry.  The measure of a Mason's citizenship is his ability to engraft the spirit of Masonry into his political life and thereby make his government more useful and efficient and enrich society with those gifts and graces with which his mind and soul, as a Mason, should be polished and adorned Faith, Hope, and Love, are the rounds on the ladder by which a Mason climbs to his task.  His wages is the satisfaction of a well-grounded hope and a well spent life.

Our Fathers of the Revolution applied that program to the problem of building a nation.  The wrongs and injustices, based largely on intolerance, heaped upon them as colonists, stirred them to action.  The Declaration of Independence was an unyielding demand for truth and justice as well as an unwavering protest against wrongs and injustice.

As a fitting conclusion to their demands and protests they added:

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Their unfaltering trust in God thus expressed in the same document was exemplified in every crisis in their career as builders of the Ship of State.

The next step in the building of the Ship of State was the writing of the Constitution.  Upon the return to peace the Articles of Federation that had held them in such remarkable unity during the war proved inadequate.  Internal strife arose and threatened for a time to destroy that for which they had contended as revolutionists.  The Constitutional Convention was called as an emergency problem.  For five months they labored, daily invoking the aid of Heaven on their deliberations, and in September 1787, they launched the Ship which their Masonic hearts and intellects had created.

The framers of this document were sons of the Revolution.  Having offered their lives and their fortunes upon the altar of their country's freedom, they were clothed with authority to announce to the world the principles for which they were establishing this government.

Listen to their declaration of purposes:

Preamble

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union; establish Justice, insure Domestic Tranquility; provide for the Common Defence: promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

This was a new doctrine in governmental affairs.  Masonry had dreamed for ages of a time when the people should come into their inalienable rights, when self-determination would be an actual realization.  Here was the fulfillment of that Masonic dream.  Nothing like it had ever been heard in the history of mankind.  Kings and dynasties were thrown to the scrapheap, and the people were enthroned as the ultimate authority in government, and the world was given to understand that America was indeed the land of liberty.

It took courage to embark on this new and untried sea.  The passage to the port of human liberty and human happiness was beset with many rocks and shoals; tempests were brewing on land and sea.  But our brethren, who were constructing the Ship of State, had faith that peculiar Masonic virtue so eminently essential in the doing of any task worthwhile.

It was the faith of Columbus in his worm-eaten ships to plow the pathless seas and open the way to a new world which enabled him to instill confidence in his discouraged sailors, the result of which is America today, with all of her glory.

When Nehemiah, on his way to Jerusalem to rebuild her broken walls, and to call his people back from their wanderings, encountered the army of opposition, it was the mighty conviction of his own soul which enabled him to say:

"We are doing a great work; the God of Heaven will fight for us."

Thus, out of his faith came the power to climb mountains, cross the plains, defeat the enemy, and rebuild the walls.

When John Knox looked upon Scotland and saw her in the grasp of sin, he cried out:

"Oh, God! give me Scotland or I die."

Out of his conviction that God would use him for the redemption of his native land came the power which has made Scotland true to Presbyterian ideals unto this day.

It was the faith of George Washington that winter at Valley Forge that God would use him to establish Masonic freedom for mankind that led him to kneel in the snow and lift his heart and voice in prayer to the source of all power and then go forth to final victory.

So, our brethren who framed the Constitution had faith.  They believed that they were giving to themselves and their posterity a charter of liberties not to be torn by the vagaries of the day and were embarking upon a ship that could weather any storm.  Notwithstanding this faith, however, they were possessed with Masonic prudence.  Defects in workmanship had to be discovered and repaired.  The people were jealous of their rights and liberties, and it was found necessary to have further safeguards.  Accordingly, from time-to-time amendments have been proposed and adopted until now there have been added to the Constitution 19 amendments, each designed to remedy some defect in the workmanship of the Ship of State.

The history of this old Ship is too well known to all to repeat its operations here.  Suffice it to say that it has served its founders and their posterity well, and its flag has never ceased to float from the mast.  A little Italian boy said to an American boy:

"I do not think your flag is pretty.  It looks like a striped stick of candy."

"That may be true," said the American boy, as his breast swelled with pride, "but no foreigner has ever licked it."

With patriotic pride we could boast of the glories of America and her people and her government until the rising of tomorrow's sun and support our boast with facts and figures that could not be gainsaid.  But as prudent Masons, we must turn aside for a few moments and face the stern fact that "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Our old Ship of State weathered the storm of Civil War and came out stronger than ever.  It has withstood the tempest of strikes and conflicts between capital and labor.  But there is now upon us a storm that will test the strength of our governmental structure as nothing else has ever done.  I refer to the widespread disrespect for law and legal authority, and the open assaults upon our American institutions.

All the ugly and cruel sentiment and criminal tendencies engendered by the war have had their reflex action in the conduct of thousands of our citizens, both men and women, since our return to peace.  A crime wave has swept from ocean to ocean, and its slimy spray has been deposited in every hamlet and village in the United States.  Enemies of our government have become bold enough to denounce our institutions and to preach their insidious doctrines of bolshevism and anarchy on our public streets, while enemies of education, the true safeguard of our public free institutions, have secretly and stealthily sought to get their hands on the throat of our public schools that some allegiance, other than to the Stars and Stripes, might be taught to our people.  Some of our people have succumbed to the insidious propaganda that the laws cannot be enforced; others in their hearts resent the principle of prohibition to the extent that they openly defy the enforcement of it.  Some are startlingly indifferent to all efforts of our officials to enforce the law.  Men considered honorable citizens in every other respect purposely conceal crime and withhold the necessary evidence for conviction.  The Sunday laws are totally disregarded.  The moral laws and laws of decency and honor are trampled underfoot.  Our homes are being robbed of their sweetness and strength by the demands of a false social order, and our wives, widows, mothers, sisters, and daughters, are no longer safe from the lascivious insults of depraved men.  Our officers seeking to enforce the law are shot down like dogs.  In fact, our domestic tranquility and our boasted liberties are but hanging to the rail, and some sudden shock to the Ship of State might set them adrift on the sea of social and political desolation.

What is the remedy?  What safeguard will meet the situation?  The answer is obvious: An unyielding demand for truth and justice; an unwavering protest against wrong and injustice; as expressed by an awakening to a sense of duty in public affairs and a consequent more general participation in public matters; and an unfaltering trust in Almighty God.

But where is this program to be applied in order to be a safeguard to the Ship of State There are four decks open to every Mason.  They are, the Home, the Schools, the Ballot, and the Law.

The home is given first because it is the chief element of either strength or weakness in a nation's life.  Into the home come the children who are to make up the citizenship of tomorrow.  But of what value are they?  Their value cannot be estimated.  When a baby is born into a home it has an immediate value in the influence it exerts on the home, and it has a potential value as a future citizen and member of society.  Its immediate value to the home into which it has come cannot be more adequately portrayed than has been done by Judd Mortimer Lewis in his poem,

Human Blossoms

Flowers!  I love flowers, and I'll say that they are sweet,

But no flower has got pink toes on a pair of rose leaf feet.

And no flower has got arms that go up round a fellow's neck,

And no flower ever tells you that it loves you most a peck.

And no flower is so weary when the long play day is by

That it snuggles to your bosom almost ready for a cry

Till you 'gin to count its piggies.

I love flowers.  They are fine,

But it’s little human blossoms that have got this heart of mine.

It is little human blossoms that can holler and can run

With their arms stretched out to meet you when your working day is done.

That your eyes begin to look for when you turn into your street

That your ears begin to listen for the patter of their feet;

That make your arms stretch out to hold them, and your face break into smiles.

It's life little human blossoms that make glad life's weary miles.

And the bluest morning glory, its rare blossoms gemed with dew,

Ain't as pretty as a baby with its face turned up to you.

I know lots of millionaires - know about them anyhow;

I know how their very presence makes men 'gin to scrape and bow.

But I don't envy them none.  They ain't got the things I seek.

Dollars can't climb into your arms and hold their cheeks agin your cheek

Like a baby can and love you.  Dollars seem plum cheap and cold

When they're put beside a baby that your arms can lift and hold.

Millions are not necessary.  Roses may not climb your wall;

But life without human blossoms ain't worth anything at all.

Nor is a nation worth anything without these little human blossoms, but the value to the nation of the citizens into which these blossoms develop depends on the kind of homes through which they pass.  There are certain definite elements of strength that should characterize every home, and which do characterize any home that is a truly Masonic home.  They are: (1) Love; (2) Example; (3) Authority; (4) Leadership; and (5) Reverence of and Devotion to Almighty God.

Home is the place where love lives - not where it boards or occasionally takes a meal - but where it dwells.  To many of us our homes have become mere service stations, where we return occasionally for fresh supplies.  We no longer have the family gatherings around the dining table three times a day, nor the family social circle around the hearthstone in the evening.  The men take their lunch downtown; the children take theirs at school; and mothers eat theirs alone at home or attend some social gathering where luncheon is served.  Supper has been eliminated even from our terminology and dinner and breakfast are served lunch-counter style to the inmates of the home, one by one, as they appear in accordance with their individual schedules for the day and evening.  Love doesn't have much chance to flourish, but desolate indeed is the home in which, from any cause, the flame of love has been extinguished.

While home is not home without love, there should be something besides love.  There should be example, authority, and leadership.

God said:

"I know Abraham, for he is a good man and will command his household after him."

Abraham was a safe example unto his family, for God said he was a good man.  That he commanded his household after him shows that he exercised authority.  That he commanded them after him and not before him shows that he was a leader.  On this kind of a platform Abraham operated as a home builder and he gained the approval of Jehovah.  Masons could imitate Father Abraham to material advantage in this day of strained social relationships in the so-called modern homes.

If we will respect law and authority ourselves and command our households to respect law and authority after us, we will do much to reestablish respect for law and authority in the nation.

But after all, the controlling factor in Abraham's career as a home builder lay in the assurance of his relationship to Almighty God.  He believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.  In too many of our homes there remains no evidences whatever of any relationship to God, and to this extent our homes have been impaired as an element of strength in our nation's life.  Henry Grady made a trip to Washington after his popular elevation as the exponent of the New South, and after viewing the Capitol, and administration and departmental buildings and the organizations they represented, and after contemplating the forces that was directed from that seat of government which crushed the Old South, he pointed to Capitol Hill and said:

"There lies the strength of our nation."

A few months later he was traveling in North Georgia, when on account of a storm he was forced to spend the night in a little mountain home.  After supper they sat around the fire and talked until bedtime.  Then to his surprise the old mountain farmer called for the Bible.  A well-worn book was taken from the shelf and out of it he read a portion of the Scriptures, and then they knelt to pray.  The old man led in his mountain dialect, but with freedom, fervency, and zeal, asking the blessings of Heaven upon our nation from President to the humblest citizen, including the stranger within his gates.  After prayer, and upon arising to their feet, Henry Grady was conducted to his bed chamber, which was a shed room on a side porch.  Here in perfect peace of mind he spent the night in restful slumber, but before he fell asleep, he had time to revise his estimate as to the source of our nation's strength.  Contemplating the scene of the evening, and remembering the scenes of his own childhood, when night after night he knelt at a similar altar, his own spiritual nature was quickened, and with truly spiritual insight he said to himself:

"The strength of this nation lies not in her magnificent buildings, and efficient departmental organizations, nor in her standing army and navy, but in the homes of this country in which God is honored as in no other country in the world."

"Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord."

"Happy is the nation whose homes are sanctuaries of the Most High."

A general diffusion of knowledge is essential to the perpetuity of a free people.  Our people have recognized this, and wherever they have had a fair chance, our public schools have been made to function with great efficiency.  But the enemies of public education are becoming bolder in their efforts to destroy their efficiency.  Therefore, additional safeguards must be thrown around our schools, and their programs for Americanization must be enlarged and vitalized.  These enemies have been ingenious in their attacks, seldom ever making direct attack upon the system, but professing fondness for the system, they seek to impair its usefulness in every conceivable way.  They have sought to eliminate the reading of the Bible in the public schools under the Constitutional prohibition against sectarian teaching, thus depriving the schools of the value of the moral teachings of the Holy Scriptures, and then they have sought to set afloat the insidious propaganda that our public schools are cesspools of immorality - a greater slander never having been uttered against a great institution.

They have succeeded in organizing quite a considerable opposition io the reading of the Bible in the public schools, but their attempts to bar its use by legal proceedings have signally failed.  In this State our own beloved but now lamented Past Grand Master Anson Rainey, who for 30 years served as a member of the Court of Civil Appeals at Dallas, and for more than 20 years as its Chief Justice, held adversely to the contentions of those who opposed the reading of the Bible in the Corsicana schools, as presented in the case of Church vs. Bullock, reported in Vol. 11, S. W., at page 1025, and said in substance that sectarian teaching means the teaching of religious doctrines which are believed by some religious sects and rejected by others, but that the Bible was not a sectarian book, and added:

"Hence to teach the existence of a supreme being of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, and that it is the highest duty of all men to adore, love, and obey, Him is not sectarian, because all religious sects so believe and teach.  The instruction becomes sectarian when it goes further and indicates doctrine or dogma concerning which the religious sects are in conflict.  This we understand to be the meaning of the Constitutional prohibition."

This should have satisfied the objectors, but they carried the case on to the Supreme Court.  Perhaps Brother Rainey's decision impressed them more as a Grand Master's edict than as a Chief Justice's opinion.  But they fared no better in the Supreme Court.  Chief Justice Thomas J. Brown, in an opinion in the same case, reported in 109 S. W., at page 115, in substance, denounced their contention as rank intolerance.  He said:

"There is no difference in the protection given by our Constitution between citizens of this State on account of religious beliefs; all are embraced in its broad language and are entitled to the protection guaranteed thereby; but it does not follow that one or more individuals have the rights to have the courts deny the people the privilege of having their children instructed in the moral truths of the Bible because such objectors do not desire that their own children shall be participants therein."

"This would be to starve the moral and spiritual natures of the many out of deference to the few."

Thus, it has been judicially determined by the highest tribunal of our State that the Bible can be read in the public schools.  Why permit our enemies to deprive our children of this privilege?

It is needless to say that this opposition to the reading of the Bible in the public schools does not come from Masonic sources.  Masonry stands for the open Bible.  One of the most impressive lessons taught me in my initiation was that given when beholding the Holy Bible upon the altar I was told that I was to take it as the rule and guide to my faith and practice.

So, my brethren, we must protect our public schools as never before.  We must make them veritable citadels for the preservation of our constitutional liberties, and for the Americanization of those children who come from homes that are not organized and operated in accordance with the spirit of Masonry.  We must make them councils of defense for the making of America safe for Americans.  The man professing allegiance to our Government who purposely would destroy our public free school system is a traitor to the government which gives him protection.  We have too many such people in our midst already to treat the matter with indifference.  Bishop Hughes of the Methodist Episcopal Church paid his respects to the enemies of free schools one day, and then added:

"I am not much on carrying of the musket, but I had as soon carry it in defense of our public free school system as any institution I know."

Bishop· Hughes is a Mason, holding membership under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.  I am sure his loyalty to our free institutions strikes a responsive chord in every true Masonic heart, whether North or South of the Mason and Dixon line; and if I mistake not the tenor and sentiment of this Grand Lodge, I believe that if the day should ever come when we would have to defend our public schools by force of arms, the Masons of Texas would want to be in the front ranks, with their Grand Master just back of the line giving orders, and with a band from the Masonic Orphans Home at a strategic point playing the old familiar tune:

"Lay on, McDuff, and damned be him Who first cries 'Hold-enough!'"

The use of the ballot is the only way that a free people can give expression to its will, and when slimy hands are put on the ballot boxes, and fraud and corruption are permitted to dominate our elections, the very essence of freedom is destroyed, and instead of being a community of free men we are degraded to the level of the galley slave, driven like dumb cattle by vile and impious wretches and their political henchmen. God forgive any Mason who may be beguiled into giving aid and comfort to any such a situation.

Not only are we to see that the elections are fairly held and the ballots correctly counted and tabulated, so as to maintain the sovereign will, but it is the duty of every Mason to cast his ballot only for men who are true to the principles of free government and to the Constitution on which it rests.  When officers of the law are compromised with the lawless element, society has to suffer, and instead of having wholesome conditions in which to rear our children, we have them subjected to vile and wicked in fluences that tend to destroy their existence - mind, body, and soul.  Such officers are a reproach to civilization, yet hundreds of men wearing the square and compass, in some sections of this State, line up under such political leadership.  Such so called Masons dishonor our great fraternity.  The way to make your ballot Masonic is to use it to strike down every person who offers himself for office whose soul is not aflame and aglow with loyalty to and reverence for the Constitution and laws, or who tolerates law violations of whatsoever nature.  If Masons would always wear the square and compasses on their ballots instead of so much for display on the lapels of their coats, their Masonry would count for more in the reestablishment of respect and reverence for the Constitution and the law.

The old prophet had a wonderful piece of human inspiration when he said:

"Where there is no vision the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."

A serious situation in this respect is confronting us today.  We hear on every hand:

"The law is broken down."

It is not a question of the law having broken down, but it is a question of lost vision on the part of the people.  When for any reason, lawyers, doctors, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, and social leaders, both men and women, wink at crime and scoff at this law or that law, or any law, they me aiding the cause of anarchy, and promoting violence.  They are sowing dragons’ teeth, and they need not be surprised when they find that no judicial or police power can prevent them from reaping the harvest.  What is the remedy?  Abraham Lincoln gave expression to the only program of safety for a free people:

"Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others.  To the support of the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor - let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty.  Let reverence of the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, in the colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in the courts of justice.  In short, let it become the political religion of the nation, and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars."

We have viewed the four decks of the Ship of State-the home, the schools, the ballot, and the law - and have outlined the service that Masons can render on each deck.  Too many of our gallant sons sleep in Flanders fields today as a sacrifice to American ideals for us to let those ideals be trampled underfoot in our midst.  To us they have thrown the torch.

Can we truthfully respond in the sentiment of the poem:

"In Flanders' Fields"

"Fear not that you have died for naught,

The torch you threw to us we caught;

Ten million hands will hold it high,

And Freedom's light shall never die;

We've learned the lesson that ye taught

In Flanders' Fields."

Is it true, have we learned the lesson that they taught?  Are we bearing aloft liberty’s torch?  It is impossible for all to go onto battlefields to show their patriotism.  The real test will come in the way we discharge our duties as citizens in peaceful pursuits.  We can rebuke the agitator anywhere we may find him.  We can inspire respect for law and lawful authority by the respect we show it ourselves.  One of the most patriotic acts that has been called to my attention in recent years occurred in Washington a few months ago.  The Phi Beta Phi Club, composed of young lawyers, arranged to give a reception to Justice Sutherland, whom President Harding had recently elevated to the Supreme bench.  Invitations were sent out, in which some smart Alex had made sport of the 18th Amendment and prohibition laws.  ln the invitation the question was asked if the person invited believed in the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act; also, how much champagne he could bring, or if he had none himself if he had access to another's cellar, indicating that liquor would flow freely at the banquet even in violation of law.  When Justice Sutherland received his invitation, he indignantly refused to be the guest of such an unlawful assembly and Judge Stafford, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, who was scheduled as toastmaster for the occasion, declined with a stinging rebuke to those thus offending, and so much unfavorable sentiment was aroused that the whole affair had to be called off.  What we need, therefore, is an aroused public sentiment and a renewed allegiance to our Government - its Constitution and its laws.  It is said that when the parchment on which the Constitution is inscribed was last taken from the safe in the State Department at Washington, the ink with which it had been written 135 years ago had faded.  Therefore, we, the Masonic successors of the framers of that document, in order to form a more perfect union, reestablish justice, reinsure domestic tranquility, more amply provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare, and make more secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, must write that Constitution again, with all of its amendments - not with ink upon parchment, but with "letters of living light" upon our Masonic breasts, that we may preserve the vision of our fathers, for "where there is no vision the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."

When 15,000 Masonic lodges, representing a membership of 3,000,000 Masons, become actively engaged in the work thus outlined, then the storm of crime and bolshevism will abate; and notwithstanding the evil signs of the time, knowing as we do the Masonic principles on which our Government is established, with Masonic faith and hope, we can lay aside our fears and trust in Masonry to hold out the beacon light to the old ship. Therefore, with an unyielding demand for truth and justice, an unwavering protest against wrong and injustice, and an unfaltering trust in Almighty God, we can say:

Thou, too, sail on, 0 Ship of State.

Sail on, 0 UNION, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

We know what Master laid thy keel,

What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,

What anvils rang, what hammers beat,

In what a forge and what a heat

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!

Fear not each sudden sound and shock,

'Tis of the wave and not the rock;

'Tis but the flapping of the sail,

And not a rent made by the gale!

In spite of rocks and tempest's roar,

In spite of false lights on the shore,

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee, - are all with thee.