Masonic Law #9 - June 20, 2007
T.F.S.
Three, five, and seven
3 5 7
By Ed Halpaus, Grand Lodge Education Officer.
Number 101 – June 20, 2007
This publication, while it is printed with the permission of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of A.F. & A. M. of Minnesota, contains the writings and opinions of Ed Halpaus and is not in any way the opinion of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota.
“The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.” Samuel Johnson
Minnesota Masonic Law #9 says: “That a candidate for Masonry must be a man of mature age, free born, of good report, hale and sound, having no maim or defect in his body that may render him incapable of learning the art and physically able to conform substantially to what the several degrees of Masonry respectively require of him. If a candidate is unable to so comply with the physical requirements, he shall nevertheless be eligible to receive the degrees of Masonry, if, after favorable action by the Constituent Lodge, his petition for degrees, accompanied by a detailed report of the nature and extent of his disabilities, is approved by the Grand Master.”
This is comparable to Mackey’s Landmark #18 which says: “Certain Qualifications of Candidates for Initiation are derived from a Landmark of the order. These qualifications are that he shall be a man – shall be un-mutilated, free born and of mature age. That is to say a woman, a cripple, or a slave, or one born in slavery, is disqualified for initiation into the rites of Freemasonry. Statutes, it is true, have from time to time been enacted enforcing explaining these principles; but the qualifications really arise from the very nature of the Masonic Institution, and from it’s symbolic teachings, and have always existed as Landmarks.”
The ‘certain qualifications of candidates’ referred to by Brother Mackey in his Landmark 18 comes from the Antiquity Manuscript, which is dated 1686 in which the Charges for Masons allowed or accepted are listed: “Thirdly that he be made be able in all degrees freeborn of a good kindred true and no Bondsman and that he have his right limbes as a man ought to have.”
However, in the so-called Old Charges which were the charges collected by the Premier Grand Lodge and compiled by Brother Anderson in The Charges of a Freemason in article III “of Lodges,” it says: “The persons admitted members of a Lodge must be good and true Men, Free-born, and of mature and discreet Age, no Bondsman, no Women, no immoral or scandalous men, but of good report.” To me, it seems, the Minnesota Masonic Law #9 tends to go along with all of the above landmarks, but more especially with the Old Charges.
In reading some old articles of The Philalethes on the CD ROM of the First 50 years of The Philalethes: In the list of articles for 1971 I came across a very good article about this very Masonic Law written by Brother Julius W. Opheim, who, by the way, was a member of Rochester Lodge #21 and went to the Celestial Lodge Above on November 30, 1984. Brother Opheim’s article on this law is so good and detailed I thought I would reproduce it here for you to read instead of trying to report on it.
Physical Qualifications - Minnesota Concept
By Julius W. Opheim – published in The Philalethes in 1971
The problem arose because the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, when it adopted the constitution of 1856, included a clause having the effect of an ancient landmark which required that a man who wished to petition for degrees be whole and unblemished physically. This was a literal application to Speculative Masonry of the rules carried over from the world of operative Masonry. Except for a slight change in language which would make the paragraph more precise, the requirement remained unchanged in the Constitution until 1920. In the meantime, the rigid character of this provision began to bother the leaders of Minnesota Masonry who in 1915 adopted a General Regulation which would permit the acceptance of a man's petition provided that his blemishes did not interfere with his performing the physical acts called for in the ritual. This General Regulation specifically ruled out assistance by another person or the use of an artificial substitute for any member of the applicant's body. Further relaxation of the old rule was made by providing that a man who was maimed after initiation would be permitted to advance. Where a felt need for change was confronted by what was held to be immutable law, resort was made to interpretation, and this was in large part the function, over the years, of the passages in the General Regulations relative to physical qualifications. No such modification accompanied the constitutional provision as enacted in 1856 and finally, as will be seen, the Constitution would be so amended as to require no accompanying interpretative section in the General Regulations as published in the 1954 Code Book.
This survey covers in depth the years 1919 into 1969 and is based upon the Grand Masters' Addresses and the reports of committees, both ad hoc and the Committee on Jurisprudence. These are included in the annual volumes of the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge. Included within the time-span covered are the years of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War into 1969. World War I marks a kind of watershed in Minnesota Masonic history, bringing as it did war casualties who wished to become members of the Fraternity, but were barred by a clause in the Grand Lodge Constitution. Not all of the men reported in the proceedings were war victims, but the plight of those who were added an emotional impact and a heightened feeling of concern on the part of Grand Lodge members which in time led to successive modifications of the restrictive clauses in the Constitution and in the General Regulations. This survey covers a period of several years beyond the enactment of the 1951-52 amendment in order to reveal the results of the constitutional change.
In 1917 Grand Master Alfred G. Pinkham mentioned the fact that his attention had been called to physical disability. His remarks take no stand relative to the problem, and he quickly shifts his attention to his concern about mental and moral disability. No mention of the problem of disabled applicants occurs in the 1918 Proceedings.
In 1919 W.N. Kendrick was Grand Master. He was a physician and an army officer. He reported refusing a subordinate lodge permission to receive the petition of a man who had lost an arm, and then went on through three pages of fine print to criticize sharply what he felt were the irrelevance and the obsolescence of the Fraternity's barrier confronting the disabled. A few excerpts illustrate his thinking:
" - Over a quarter of a million of our boys have been wounded in a greater or less degree."
"Is the operation of our present law debarring them to be a sample of the gratitude with which we are to meet them?"
"There may have been a time in the 'operative days' when these regulations were necessary, but in the Speculative days of the science, not only are these regulations obsolete, but they are an absolute detriment to the Fraternity."
"We frankly inform our novitiate the internal and not the external qualifications of a man are what Masonry regards, and yet we have on our statute books a law debarring men for the most trivial defects."
"Not many months ago I heard M.W. Brother Louis Block, Past Grand Master of Iowa, say that he would rather see a member with a cork leg than a cork head, and I devoutly said, 'Amen"'.
M.W. Brother Kendrick’s' discussion of this problem is clear and eloquent and worth reading in its entirety. It is in the Proceedings for 1919, pages 39-42.
Grand Master Kendrick appointed a special committee of three: P.G.M. Albert Berg, Deputy Grand Master George M. Stowe, and Senior Grand Deacon Herman Held, who endorsed the Grand Master's proposal and submitted it as an amendment to the General Regulations:
"A man to be eligible for the degrees must be able to conform to all the ceremonies required in the work and practice of Masonry. The substitution of artificial parts, or limbs, for portions of his natural person shall not be a bar, provided such parts are under practical control of the petitioner. Deformities or blemishes of the natural person may or may not be disqualifications, depending upon the nature and extent of same.
"Masters and Lodges will be held strictly accountable for the observance of the Law. The Lodge has a discretion which must be exercised with care and prudence."
The Committee on Jurisprudence, in their report to this 1919 Communication said, "We have considered the report of the Special Committee on Physical Qualifications and find that as the Physical Qualifications of candidates for the degrees is a constitutional requirement, we recommend that paragraph 9 of Section 5, Article II of the Constitution be amended by adding after the word 'dismembered' in the last line thereof, the following words, 'Provided that the possession of an artificial limb or part under the practical control of the candidate shall not be considered a dismemberment'."
The proposed amendment was adopted by the Grand Lodge, and as required, laid over for final action at the next Annual Communication. As a rigid, impersonal legalism gave way to a more humane concern for man as against an institution, Masonic law was once more modified in Minnesota. The absolute requirement of 1856 had been softened slightly to admit a man with blemishes which were not related to ritualistic performance. Now a man who had mechanical parts which could enable him to take his full part in the drama was acceptable, but anything which would prevent his physically doing that which would be required of him still barred his entrance. An evolutionary process was at work, first in the thinking of Minnesota Masons and second, in their laws. The process would continue for another generation or more.
Grand Master George M. Stowe, in his address before the Grand Lodge in 1920 reported receiving several applications concerning physical disability and that in each instance he had cited the law and permitted no deviation there from. He also recalled the action of 1919, concurred with M.W. Brother Kendrick's remarks about disabled veterans, urged the Grand Lodge to proceed with caution, took a stand against amending the Constitution, and then recommended an amendment to the General Regulations which would permit, upon petition of five members of a subordinate lodge, an appeal to the Grand Master. The appeal would be accompanied by photographs of the maimed applicant and the Grand Master would have discretionary authority to issue a dispensation.
The Grand Lodge adopted the amendment which had been laid over from the Communication of 1919. Upon recommendation of the Committee on Jurisprudence, it also adopted Grand Master Stowe's suggested change in the General Regulations. Both of these actions would, at the next Annual Communication, bring about a strongly worded objection by Grand Master Stowe's successor, and would result in a change in the article in the General Regulations relative to physical qualifications.
In 1921 the Grand Master just referred to, E.A. Montgomery, reported refusing Sibley Lodge No. 209 permission to receive the petition of a man who had lost one foot. He then went on to indicate his dislike of having to view the pictures of maimed and dismembered men, and added that in his opinion the 1919-1920 amendment to the Constitution was an unwarranted change in an ancient landmark. Furthermore, he said, the General Regulation which was adopted in 1920 was inconsistent with the constitutional amendment. He suggested that the Committee on Jurisprudence clarify Section 5, Article II of the Constitution as to artificial limbs and parts, and reported that he had during the year rejected eighteen cases of dismemberment, holding them unqualified to petition for degrees.
The Committee on Jurisprudence agreed with that part of Grand Master Montgomery's address which pointed out the inconsistency just referred to, explained that the action of the previous year had been hasty, and submitted their own substitute for Article VII, Section 27 of the General Regulations. It was adopted:
"The requirements of the landmarks that a petitioner must be a man of mature age, of good report, hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered, may be deemed to be complied with if a petitioner is twenty-one years of age when he files his petition, of good character, physically and mentally sound, and if no physical defects exist which will disable him as a candidate from conforming to and meeting the requirements of the rites and ceremonies of all the degrees without assistance. Provided, that the possession of an artificial limb or part under the practical control of a candidate which enables him to take all of the positions and steps required in any of the degrees, shall not be considered dismemberment. Any impairment of the foregoing requirements occurring after a candidate's initiation shall not bar his advancement. No ruling of a Master of a Lodge nor decision or dispensation of the Grand Master can warrant any departure from the regulation laid down in this section."
The years 1919 through 1921 were a transitional period in which the Masonic leaders of Minnesota struggled to perfect a formula which would reinterpret what had long been considered an Ancient Landmark. The Grand Lodge of Minnesota, in the Constitution which was formulated in 1855 and adopted in 1856, spelled out a list of twenty-six items which were "enumerated as among the Ancient Constitutions having the force of Ancient Landmarks of the Fraternity, having as such been generally received and acknowledged by Masons." The late Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, Charles Clyde Hunt, in his treatise The Landmarks of Freemasonry, indicates that this may well have been the first compiled list of Ancient Landmarks. Whether a landmark can, by its very nature, be formally enacted into law is a moot question, and the reader who is interested may wish to consult the book just referred to as well as The History and Evolution of Freemasonry” by Delmar Duane Darrah, 33d, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Illinois.
Be that as it may, the 1856 Constitution, Part I, Section 9 reads: "That men made Masons must be of mature age, freeborn, of good report, hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered, and no eunuch." To modify this rigid inheritance from operative Masonry so that in a more humane and productive way it might serve Speculative Masonry was the problem with which the Freemasons of Minnesota would continue to struggle for another three decades or more.
In 1922 the Grand Master makes no mention of physical disability, but the Committee on Jurisprudence is recorded as ruling ineligible a petitioner with a stiff right knee. In 1923 no cases were reported. In 1924 the Grand Master approved the candidacy of a petitioner with a severe hearing deficiency which could be corrected by the use of a hearing aid. In 1925 the Grand Master reported the instance of a petitioner who had lost his arm at the right shoulder, but who had an artificial limb with flexible fingers which could be positioned by use of the left hand. The Grand Master left the decision up to the Worshipful Master, but indicated that in his own judgment the candidate "hardly comes up to the requirements intended."
In 1927 a request for dispensation to confer the degrees on a tubercular patient in his own home was denied because of the requirement that a man be hale and sound. The Committee on Jurisprudence concurred. In 1928 the Grand Master ruled two men ineligible. One had his right arm amputated at the elbow. The other had lost the thumb of his right hand. In 1929 no cases were reported, and in 1930 there is a passing reference to "the usual number of cases regarding physical qualifications; - ".
Beginning with 1931 and continuing through 1945 there is during this fifteen-year depression and war period only one case - an amputee - reported. The Committee on Jurisprudence reported the situation and ruled that if the man had the necessary artificial arm he was, under the constitution, eligible.
The year 1947, with Judge Vernon Gates as Grand Master presiding over the Grand Lodge marked the beginning of another watershed in the history of Minnesota Masonry as the Grand Lodge struggled to reconcile the requirements of operative Masonry with the real character and purpose of Symbolic Masonry. His is the first really forceful statement as to the need for reinterpreting Freemasonry's law covering physical qualifications since Past Grand Master Kendrick made his eloquent appeal for change in 1919. Said M.W. Brother Gates in part:
"Our physical qualifications are ancient in their origin. No one was admitted to Lodges of operative Masons unless he was of mature age, good repute, hale and sound, and not deformed or dismembered. This was because operative Lodges were mutual help craft organizations. Physical qualifications were, therefore, of vital importance. Speculative Masonry, however, is a system of ethics and is concerned primarily with the inner qualifications of its candidates. "The Minnesota Grand Lodge long ago recognized this and attempted to put it into effect by providing that a candidate having an artificial limb under such control that he could take the traditional positions and steps required during initiation should not be considered dismembered. "When the provision was drafted, however, it was not anticipated that we would eventually be plunged into the most destructive war in history and that we would be sending eleven million of our finest young men to defend our way of life, and that thousands of them would come back with injuries that would disqualify them under this provision.
"As an illustration I will cite the case of a young man who suffered a severe knee injury while in service. Skillful medical care saved his leg but left him with a stiff knee. He had every qualification for Masonry except this one. Had the doctors amputated his leg and fitted him with an artificial one, he would have been admitted. I therefore recommend a revision of this section."
That is where Brother Opheim ended his article. The section regarding physical qualifications was revised into what we now have, as recorded in Minnesota Masonic Law #9.
More Light – Mehr Licht ©, Masonic Matters © and T.F.S. ©, are sent out by E-mail at no charge to anyone who would like to receive them. If you enjoy these publications please share them with others. To subscribe to any one or all of these publications just send an E-mail to ed@halpaus.net with Subscribe and the Title, or ‘all 3,’ in the subject line and you will be added to the list to receive the publication you want.
“Ability is of little account without opportunity.” Napoleon
Facta sunt potentoria verbis = [Latin] = Deeds are more powerful than words.
From the Great Light of Masonry: “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 NIV
To read this paper in PDF click here: http://www.halpaus.net/TFS101.pdf
With “Brotherly Love”,
Ed Halpaus
Grand Lodge Education Officer
Three, five, and seven
3 5 7
By Ed Halpaus, Grand Lodge Education Officer.
Number 101 – June 20, 2007
This publication, while it is printed with the permission of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of A.F. & A. M. of Minnesota, contains the writings and opinions of Ed Halpaus and is not in any way the opinion of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota.
“The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.” Samuel Johnson
Minnesota Masonic Law #9 says: “That a candidate for Masonry must be a man of mature age, free born, of good report, hale and sound, having no maim or defect in his body that may render him incapable of learning the art and physically able to conform substantially to what the several degrees of Masonry respectively require of him. If a candidate is unable to so comply with the physical requirements, he shall nevertheless be eligible to receive the degrees of Masonry, if, after favorable action by the Constituent Lodge, his petition for degrees, accompanied by a detailed report of the nature and extent of his disabilities, is approved by the Grand Master.”
This is comparable to Mackey’s Landmark #18 which says: “Certain Qualifications of Candidates for Initiation are derived from a Landmark of the order. These qualifications are that he shall be a man – shall be un-mutilated, free born and of mature age. That is to say a woman, a cripple, or a slave, or one born in slavery, is disqualified for initiation into the rites of Freemasonry. Statutes, it is true, have from time to time been enacted enforcing explaining these principles; but the qualifications really arise from the very nature of the Masonic Institution, and from it’s symbolic teachings, and have always existed as Landmarks.”
The ‘certain qualifications of candidates’ referred to by Brother Mackey in his Landmark 18 comes from the Antiquity Manuscript, which is dated 1686 in which the Charges for Masons allowed or accepted are listed: “Thirdly that he be made be able in all degrees freeborn of a good kindred true and no Bondsman and that he have his right limbes as a man ought to have.”
However, in the so-called Old Charges which were the charges collected by the Premier Grand Lodge and compiled by Brother Anderson in The Charges of a Freemason in article III “of Lodges,” it says: “The persons admitted members of a Lodge must be good and true Men, Free-born, and of mature and discreet Age, no Bondsman, no Women, no immoral or scandalous men, but of good report.” To me, it seems, the Minnesota Masonic Law #9 tends to go along with all of the above landmarks, but more especially with the Old Charges.
In reading some old articles of The Philalethes on the CD ROM of the First 50 years of The Philalethes: In the list of articles for 1971 I came across a very good article about this very Masonic Law written by Brother Julius W. Opheim, who, by the way, was a member of Rochester Lodge #21 and went to the Celestial Lodge Above on November 30, 1984. Brother Opheim’s article on this law is so good and detailed I thought I would reproduce it here for you to read instead of trying to report on it.
Physical Qualifications - Minnesota Concept
By Julius W. Opheim – published in The Philalethes in 1971
The problem arose because the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, when it adopted the constitution of 1856, included a clause having the effect of an ancient landmark which required that a man who wished to petition for degrees be whole and unblemished physically. This was a literal application to Speculative Masonry of the rules carried over from the world of operative Masonry. Except for a slight change in language which would make the paragraph more precise, the requirement remained unchanged in the Constitution until 1920. In the meantime, the rigid character of this provision began to bother the leaders of Minnesota Masonry who in 1915 adopted a General Regulation which would permit the acceptance of a man's petition provided that his blemishes did not interfere with his performing the physical acts called for in the ritual. This General Regulation specifically ruled out assistance by another person or the use of an artificial substitute for any member of the applicant's body. Further relaxation of the old rule was made by providing that a man who was maimed after initiation would be permitted to advance. Where a felt need for change was confronted by what was held to be immutable law, resort was made to interpretation, and this was in large part the function, over the years, of the passages in the General Regulations relative to physical qualifications. No such modification accompanied the constitutional provision as enacted in 1856 and finally, as will be seen, the Constitution would be so amended as to require no accompanying interpretative section in the General Regulations as published in the 1954 Code Book.
This survey covers in depth the years 1919 into 1969 and is based upon the Grand Masters' Addresses and the reports of committees, both ad hoc and the Committee on Jurisprudence. These are included in the annual volumes of the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge. Included within the time-span covered are the years of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War into 1969. World War I marks a kind of watershed in Minnesota Masonic history, bringing as it did war casualties who wished to become members of the Fraternity, but were barred by a clause in the Grand Lodge Constitution. Not all of the men reported in the proceedings were war victims, but the plight of those who were added an emotional impact and a heightened feeling of concern on the part of Grand Lodge members which in time led to successive modifications of the restrictive clauses in the Constitution and in the General Regulations. This survey covers a period of several years beyond the enactment of the 1951-52 amendment in order to reveal the results of the constitutional change.
In 1917 Grand Master Alfred G. Pinkham mentioned the fact that his attention had been called to physical disability. His remarks take no stand relative to the problem, and he quickly shifts his attention to his concern about mental and moral disability. No mention of the problem of disabled applicants occurs in the 1918 Proceedings.
In 1919 W.N. Kendrick was Grand Master. He was a physician and an army officer. He reported refusing a subordinate lodge permission to receive the petition of a man who had lost an arm, and then went on through three pages of fine print to criticize sharply what he felt were the irrelevance and the obsolescence of the Fraternity's barrier confronting the disabled. A few excerpts illustrate his thinking:
" - Over a quarter of a million of our boys have been wounded in a greater or less degree."
"Is the operation of our present law debarring them to be a sample of the gratitude with which we are to meet them?"
"There may have been a time in the 'operative days' when these regulations were necessary, but in the Speculative days of the science, not only are these regulations obsolete, but they are an absolute detriment to the Fraternity."
"We frankly inform our novitiate the internal and not the external qualifications of a man are what Masonry regards, and yet we have on our statute books a law debarring men for the most trivial defects."
"Not many months ago I heard M.W. Brother Louis Block, Past Grand Master of Iowa, say that he would rather see a member with a cork leg than a cork head, and I devoutly said, 'Amen"'.
M.W. Brother Kendrick’s' discussion of this problem is clear and eloquent and worth reading in its entirety. It is in the Proceedings for 1919, pages 39-42.
Grand Master Kendrick appointed a special committee of three: P.G.M. Albert Berg, Deputy Grand Master George M. Stowe, and Senior Grand Deacon Herman Held, who endorsed the Grand Master's proposal and submitted it as an amendment to the General Regulations:
"A man to be eligible for the degrees must be able to conform to all the ceremonies required in the work and practice of Masonry. The substitution of artificial parts, or limbs, for portions of his natural person shall not be a bar, provided such parts are under practical control of the petitioner. Deformities or blemishes of the natural person may or may not be disqualifications, depending upon the nature and extent of same.
"Masters and Lodges will be held strictly accountable for the observance of the Law. The Lodge has a discretion which must be exercised with care and prudence."
The Committee on Jurisprudence, in their report to this 1919 Communication said, "We have considered the report of the Special Committee on Physical Qualifications and find that as the Physical Qualifications of candidates for the degrees is a constitutional requirement, we recommend that paragraph 9 of Section 5, Article II of the Constitution be amended by adding after the word 'dismembered' in the last line thereof, the following words, 'Provided that the possession of an artificial limb or part under the practical control of the candidate shall not be considered a dismemberment'."
The proposed amendment was adopted by the Grand Lodge, and as required, laid over for final action at the next Annual Communication. As a rigid, impersonal legalism gave way to a more humane concern for man as against an institution, Masonic law was once more modified in Minnesota. The absolute requirement of 1856 had been softened slightly to admit a man with blemishes which were not related to ritualistic performance. Now a man who had mechanical parts which could enable him to take his full part in the drama was acceptable, but anything which would prevent his physically doing that which would be required of him still barred his entrance. An evolutionary process was at work, first in the thinking of Minnesota Masons and second, in their laws. The process would continue for another generation or more.
Grand Master George M. Stowe, in his address before the Grand Lodge in 1920 reported receiving several applications concerning physical disability and that in each instance he had cited the law and permitted no deviation there from. He also recalled the action of 1919, concurred with M.W. Brother Kendrick's remarks about disabled veterans, urged the Grand Lodge to proceed with caution, took a stand against amending the Constitution, and then recommended an amendment to the General Regulations which would permit, upon petition of five members of a subordinate lodge, an appeal to the Grand Master. The appeal would be accompanied by photographs of the maimed applicant and the Grand Master would have discretionary authority to issue a dispensation.
The Grand Lodge adopted the amendment which had been laid over from the Communication of 1919. Upon recommendation of the Committee on Jurisprudence, it also adopted Grand Master Stowe's suggested change in the General Regulations. Both of these actions would, at the next Annual Communication, bring about a strongly worded objection by Grand Master Stowe's successor, and would result in a change in the article in the General Regulations relative to physical qualifications.
In 1921 the Grand Master just referred to, E.A. Montgomery, reported refusing Sibley Lodge No. 209 permission to receive the petition of a man who had lost one foot. He then went on to indicate his dislike of having to view the pictures of maimed and dismembered men, and added that in his opinion the 1919-1920 amendment to the Constitution was an unwarranted change in an ancient landmark. Furthermore, he said, the General Regulation which was adopted in 1920 was inconsistent with the constitutional amendment. He suggested that the Committee on Jurisprudence clarify Section 5, Article II of the Constitution as to artificial limbs and parts, and reported that he had during the year rejected eighteen cases of dismemberment, holding them unqualified to petition for degrees.
The Committee on Jurisprudence agreed with that part of Grand Master Montgomery's address which pointed out the inconsistency just referred to, explained that the action of the previous year had been hasty, and submitted their own substitute for Article VII, Section 27 of the General Regulations. It was adopted:
"The requirements of the landmarks that a petitioner must be a man of mature age, of good report, hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered, may be deemed to be complied with if a petitioner is twenty-one years of age when he files his petition, of good character, physically and mentally sound, and if no physical defects exist which will disable him as a candidate from conforming to and meeting the requirements of the rites and ceremonies of all the degrees without assistance. Provided, that the possession of an artificial limb or part under the practical control of a candidate which enables him to take all of the positions and steps required in any of the degrees, shall not be considered dismemberment. Any impairment of the foregoing requirements occurring after a candidate's initiation shall not bar his advancement. No ruling of a Master of a Lodge nor decision or dispensation of the Grand Master can warrant any departure from the regulation laid down in this section."
The years 1919 through 1921 were a transitional period in which the Masonic leaders of Minnesota struggled to perfect a formula which would reinterpret what had long been considered an Ancient Landmark. The Grand Lodge of Minnesota, in the Constitution which was formulated in 1855 and adopted in 1856, spelled out a list of twenty-six items which were "enumerated as among the Ancient Constitutions having the force of Ancient Landmarks of the Fraternity, having as such been generally received and acknowledged by Masons." The late Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, Charles Clyde Hunt, in his treatise The Landmarks of Freemasonry, indicates that this may well have been the first compiled list of Ancient Landmarks. Whether a landmark can, by its very nature, be formally enacted into law is a moot question, and the reader who is interested may wish to consult the book just referred to as well as The History and Evolution of Freemasonry” by Delmar Duane Darrah, 33d, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Illinois.
Be that as it may, the 1856 Constitution, Part I, Section 9 reads: "That men made Masons must be of mature age, freeborn, of good report, hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered, and no eunuch." To modify this rigid inheritance from operative Masonry so that in a more humane and productive way it might serve Speculative Masonry was the problem with which the Freemasons of Minnesota would continue to struggle for another three decades or more.
In 1922 the Grand Master makes no mention of physical disability, but the Committee on Jurisprudence is recorded as ruling ineligible a petitioner with a stiff right knee. In 1923 no cases were reported. In 1924 the Grand Master approved the candidacy of a petitioner with a severe hearing deficiency which could be corrected by the use of a hearing aid. In 1925 the Grand Master reported the instance of a petitioner who had lost his arm at the right shoulder, but who had an artificial limb with flexible fingers which could be positioned by use of the left hand. The Grand Master left the decision up to the Worshipful Master, but indicated that in his own judgment the candidate "hardly comes up to the requirements intended."
In 1927 a request for dispensation to confer the degrees on a tubercular patient in his own home was denied because of the requirement that a man be hale and sound. The Committee on Jurisprudence concurred. In 1928 the Grand Master ruled two men ineligible. One had his right arm amputated at the elbow. The other had lost the thumb of his right hand. In 1929 no cases were reported, and in 1930 there is a passing reference to "the usual number of cases regarding physical qualifications; - ".
Beginning with 1931 and continuing through 1945 there is during this fifteen-year depression and war period only one case - an amputee - reported. The Committee on Jurisprudence reported the situation and ruled that if the man had the necessary artificial arm he was, under the constitution, eligible.
The year 1947, with Judge Vernon Gates as Grand Master presiding over the Grand Lodge marked the beginning of another watershed in the history of Minnesota Masonry as the Grand Lodge struggled to reconcile the requirements of operative Masonry with the real character and purpose of Symbolic Masonry. His is the first really forceful statement as to the need for reinterpreting Freemasonry's law covering physical qualifications since Past Grand Master Kendrick made his eloquent appeal for change in 1919. Said M.W. Brother Gates in part:
"Our physical qualifications are ancient in their origin. No one was admitted to Lodges of operative Masons unless he was of mature age, good repute, hale and sound, and not deformed or dismembered. This was because operative Lodges were mutual help craft organizations. Physical qualifications were, therefore, of vital importance. Speculative Masonry, however, is a system of ethics and is concerned primarily with the inner qualifications of its candidates. "The Minnesota Grand Lodge long ago recognized this and attempted to put it into effect by providing that a candidate having an artificial limb under such control that he could take the traditional positions and steps required during initiation should not be considered dismembered. "When the provision was drafted, however, it was not anticipated that we would eventually be plunged into the most destructive war in history and that we would be sending eleven million of our finest young men to defend our way of life, and that thousands of them would come back with injuries that would disqualify them under this provision.
"As an illustration I will cite the case of a young man who suffered a severe knee injury while in service. Skillful medical care saved his leg but left him with a stiff knee. He had every qualification for Masonry except this one. Had the doctors amputated his leg and fitted him with an artificial one, he would have been admitted. I therefore recommend a revision of this section."
That is where Brother Opheim ended his article. The section regarding physical qualifications was revised into what we now have, as recorded in Minnesota Masonic Law #9.
More Light – Mehr Licht ©, Masonic Matters © and T.F.S. ©, are sent out by E-mail at no charge to anyone who would like to receive them. If you enjoy these publications please share them with others. To subscribe to any one or all of these publications just send an E-mail to ed@halpaus.net with Subscribe and the Title, or ‘all 3,’ in the subject line and you will be added to the list to receive the publication you want.
“Ability is of little account without opportunity.” Napoleon
Facta sunt potentoria verbis = [Latin] = Deeds are more powerful than words.
From the Great Light of Masonry: “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 NIV
To read this paper in PDF click here: http://www.halpaus.net/TFS101.pdf
With “Brotherly Love”,
Ed Halpaus
Grand Lodge Education Officer
Labels: Landmarks