I have been in Masonry for almost fifty years. It will be fifty on September 25th 2004 and I feel I have been writing articles for one masonic organization or another for most of that time. Last month I got tired, hence last month's article because I thought I had nothing more of interest to write about. Needless to say, a number of readers of the "Chips" didn't agree with me and said so. So... I'm back!

The history of Masonry in America and our Founding Fathers who were Masons and their Lodges is informative. Organized Masonry, as we know it, was established only 60 or 70 years before we became a country, and from the very begining we established a policy in Masonry of keeping politics out of the Lodge room. Many of our Founding Fathers belonged to relative new Lodges and these Lodges were chartered in England and some Lodge's Grand Lodges are still there.

We all know from our history that in Colonial times not every one wanted to separate from England. In reading about the history of Masonry in America, though many individual Masons were involved in the revolution only, one Lodge in Boston was suspected to have played a part in the activities before or during that time.

If I am correct, and Lodges were pretty much the same then as they are now, I can hear the Junior Warden and Stewards of that Boston Lodge complaining that after preparing great refreshments, nobody stuck around to enjoy them or what they were going to serve at the next meeting with all that stuff floating in the harbor. I was thinking of what you might have overheard before a Lodge meeting in Virginia; "You wrote King George and told him what?!!! Are you trying to get us all killed, Brother Tom?" Or maybe the Editor of the Lodge Trestle Board might have said, "Brother Tom, that article you promised, let's wait a little while before you submit it." Being an old Past Master, I know what one of them said, "Does the Inspector or Grand Lodge know what you did Brother Tom?"

Fraternally,

Stanley Higgins, PM

Senior Warden