George Washington Masonic Memorial
By Bro. J. Claude Keiper
Address Delivered Before the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association
I am bidden by the Worshipful Master of Alexandria-Washington Lodge to speak of the work of the Washington Memorial Association, whose avowed purpose it is that here in Virginia, not greatly distant from the place of his birth, nigh to the home he loved and cherished, the hallowed spot where his ashes repose; here in Alexandria, the community in which his Masonic virtues were best known and best regarded, and where he presided as Master over the labors of his brethren, here, even in the shadow of the church in which he worshiped, there shall rise a memorial to the only man in all our history who was at the one time Master of his Masonic Lodge and President of the United States, a national memorial to Washington the Mason, a Craftsman who in no respect was ever unworthy of his work.
It is not my purpose to present to you statistical abstracts of the progress of the movement, the number of grand jurisdictions which have approved it, nor the amount of the fund so far collected for the purpose of the Memorial. These matters, important though they best may well be left to the consideration of the devoted men who constitute the Association and who are giving freely of their time and their talents in what is to them a labor of love.
Monuments commemorative of the patriotism of Washington, his valor and prowess as a military leader, memorials designed to perpetuate his wisdom and virtue as a statesman have been erected throughout all our land by a loving and grateful people, but nowhere, so far as I know, save in the hearts of his appreciative brethren, has there been erected a memorial of the character contemplated by this Association.
Need I say more to justify the work in which it is engaged? It is true that Masonic memorials to individual brethren are comparatively rare and this is not because our Fraternity has been influenced by a desire to conceal from public knowledge who among the Nation's great have wrought greatly for the upbuilding of the Craft. I take it that it is rather because Masonry has recognized the truth that idealized conceptions in bronze and marble, however beautiful in themselves, can avail little to add to the luster of a name or embellish an achievement, and further that as an ancient and honorable institution it would be inconsistent with its dignity to be boastful of the connection with it of any man, however distinguished his career or exalted his station. It is our boast that in Masonry all are on the one plane of perfect equality, and a remarkable illustration of this is found in the life of Washington himself, concerning whom there was published a few weeks ago in one of the Boston papers an incident telling how he, the General of the American Army, was one day observed seated in the tent of an Army Lodge as a mere member while a corporal presided therein as Master, exemplifying thereby the basic principle of our Fraternity to which I have alluded, a principle announced with undying emphasis by that other great Virginian when he wrote into the Declaration of Independence, the assertion that all men are created equal.
Therefore it is that the Association for which I speak does not approach the erection of this Memorial with the primary purpose of gratifying a vainglorious spirit. It is true that one of the results of its work will be the proclamation to all the world of Washington's connection with Masonry. But there are other and higher aims and there will be other and higher results. One of them will be wholly utilitarian, for within the memorial building will be provided a place of safe deposit for the priceless relics that now adorn the Lodge room of the local Masonic bodies. And what a splendidly personal interest in him do they inspire in us as we reverently gaze upon them! More than that. How strong will be their appeal, how profound their impression upon the brethren from the East and from the West, from the North and from the South, as they gather in after years at what I hope and believe will be the shrine of Freemasonry in the United States, the Mecca toward which will be set the feet of Craftsmen in ever-increasing thousands.
To present properly another result let me go back to that time, now more than 150 years gone, when, as a young man just attaining his majority, Washington first learned of Masonry and its truths. Can any one doubt that its beneficent teachings exerted a powerful influence upon a mind and character already predisposed toward them by inherent morality and integrity ? An influence that was strongly felt and plainly manifested in the formation, upon allied principles, of a government in whose making there were associated with him so many Masons. Therefore it is that this Memorial will symbolize more than his connection with our fraternity, proud of it as we are and may rightfully be; therefore it is that over and above all mere personal considerations it will stand a living monument to the benign influence of Masonic teachings in the formation of a great government, under which millions of free people have found happiness, obtained justice and through which, under the providence of God, they and their posterity shall long enjoy the blessings of untrammeled liberty.
My friends, seated here tonight on the natal day of our revered brother and gathered for its appropriate commemoration, I beg you to indulge me a moment further as I ask you to go back with me in imagination to a similar occasion, exactly 90 years ago, when Alexandria-Washington Lodge, on February 21,1825, entertained one of Washington's best loved associates in the War for Independence, General La Fayette. You are familiar with the details. Picture for yourselves that devoted friend of Liberty entering the Lodge room clothed in the Masonic habiliments of Washington. Picture the subsequent assembly around the banquet table and listen to the toasts proposed. First, as a matter of course, was one to Washington, extolled as "First in cabinet, first in the field and first in the principles of Masonry." Then one to the President of the United States, James Monroe, whose name will ever be affectionately associated with the doctrine of preserving American soil for the propagation of the principles of American liberty. And then one to "Our Illustrious Brother and Guest, La Fayette. His brethren take peculiar pleasure in receiving him in that Lodge over which their beloved Washington was pleased to preside." And now hearken to the response. Note that it might well have been a prophecy of our present undertaking as he says, "The Masonic Temple of Alexandria, and the illustrious, venerated name under which it has been consecrated." Surely in closing I can leave with you no higher wish than that this saying of nearly a century ago may become the animating and inspiring watchword of our whole Fraternity until its efforts to erect a national memorial to Washington the Mason shall be crowned with complete success.
-Source: The Builder - July 1915