A Memorial to Washington the Mason
By Bro. Geo. L. Schoonover, P. G. M., Iowa
We Americans build monuments to hearts. Sentimental we are, and sentimental we must remain, if we are to accomplish our destiny. America was founded in sentiment. America, in 1776, was a living protest against tyranny - not the tyranny which makes men physical slaves, but that tyranny which makes men slaves by denying them the right to possess sentiment. The pioneer may have been somewhat of a soldier of fortune. He may have craved excitement - the excitement of the chase and the hazard of discovering and subduing the unknown. But underneath it all was the throbbing sentiment of absolute freedom. It was a passion with him. It was worth any price. The conquering of the West was born of the same sentiment. Every war in which we have engaged has been won because our deepest sentiments were aroused. We may search, and perhaps find, commercial, practical and sometimes sordid motives among individual Americans - but they did not rule our people.
The heart has ruled our people. The greatest hearts among us have been our heroes and our great men. The greatest hearts have won us by their senti ments of real Americanism. No more outstanding figure pervades the recollection of the recent Greal War than Theodore Roosevelt. America, North and South, knows that the greatest loss of the Civil Wa was Lincoln's death. And the Anglo-Saxon world England no less than the United States, pays homage to the great heart of the Revolution, George Washington.
The world knows the real George Washington less because of the sentimental myths woven about his his torical character. Americans appreciate his service to our Country. They have pictured him as a great, self-made character. "Father of his Country" they call him, having in mind his service as a statesman and a nation-builder. But of the human side of him they know little. When they think of his stalwartness, they think of him as a General of the American Army. Little do they know of the countless authentic instances of his stalwartness as an incorruptible first citizen. His great heart, for most people, is emblazoned upon battle fields and the history of campaigns.
To a little town in Virginia, and to a little old Masonic lodge in that town, are we indebted for the little known but well authenticated human side of this world renowned character. Lose the personal relics of that lodge, and even Mount Vernon itself can never redeem the record of the man great because the heart of him was great. The homely, home-grown heart, of which the world knows so little. Those brave and persistent women who have saved Mt. Vernon for us performed a service for America which is only now beginning to be appreciated. What they have preserved for us is invaluable. More than a house or a farm, it is a heritage, barely rescued from destruction.
To Masonry comes now an even greater opportunity. Housed in a little nineteenth century lodge room in Alexandria are more relics - human relics - of Washington than ever were or ever can be gathered together, of the real Washington. They appertain to Washington, The Mason. It is to Washington The Mason that we must look if we would understand the true character of the man. It is into this little lodge room that we must enter, if we would find the source of his inspiration and aspiration,the things that have made him a World-character.
He who would deny that this is the true source of the qualities which made George Washington great must in this lodge-room face his Masonic Apron; the charter for the lodge, granted to "George Washington, Late Commander-in-Chief" of the United States forces, as Worshipful Master, by Edmund Randolph, Grand Master of Virginia; letters in autograph, proving his pride in his Masonic connection, and not one, but hundreds of other mementoes, personal and Masonic in their character, conclusive in their evidence that it is to Masonry that we must look for the groundwork of Washington's Americanism, even as we must do likewise with most of the other great characters of the formative period of this Republic.
Because this old Lodge-Hall houses these relics; because the surroundings are hazardous in that they are not fire-proof; because this heritage is worthy of being placed in a memorial temple befitting so exalted a character; because to lose them would be an irreparable loss to a great Republic which delights to do Washington honor; for these reasons has it come about that Masons of vision outside of Virginia have proposed a National Memorial, typifying the loyalty of the Fraternity in the United States as a whole, in which these relics should find an eternal resting place. The sentiment that pervades the very atmosphere of the old Hall, no less than these priceless material mementoes of the man Washington, belongs to American Masons, and has provoked in members of the Fraternity a sense of duty unfulfilled, until the memorial house in which they are to be kept shall be a Mecca worthy of the Fraternity of Washington's inspiration.
To build such a memorial by the free-will offerings of the Masonic Fraternity in the United States is to perform a great service to the Fraternity, also. There is need for a national symbol of the interdependence of our American liberties and this great patriotic organization of ours. The campaign for its erection will be more than a campaign for funds. It will mean a reawakening of our members to the civic responsibilities devolving upon us. Those who undertake to promote this enterprise will not be solicitors for dollars, they will be evangels of Masonic duty to our Country in time of stress.
- Source: The Builder December - 1919