Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1883-07-16
FREE MASONRY AND
POLITICS.

1t will surprise most people to-
learn, from the resolutions of the
anti-Masonic state convention, that
Free Masonry has exerted a baleful
and demoralizing influence on politi-5
cal institutions of this state; that the
state is ''run'' by the Masons; and
that Masonry in Vermont has a ''darkl
history" and its acts are of ''horrid5
blackness. This is dreadful, if
true. But such has not been the
popular view of Masonry. The only
ssdark history and ''acts of horrid
blackness" are associated in the pub
lie mind chiefly with the historic
goat which is popularity supposed to
perform so important part in the
initiation of neophytes into the mys-
teries of the craft-a malevolent and
dreadful animal who is kept in the
dark recesses of the lodge room for
ever unseen except by the Masonic
eve, and of whose demoniac doings
countless wild, weird tales are mar
rated. Aside from his connection
with this mysterious and preternatur-
ally sagacious quadruped, the gener-
al public regard the Mason as a
harmless citizen with great pro-
clivity to public professions and the
use of metaphorical language. You
might know your neighbor for years
and never suspect that he is habit
ual Mason. All of a sudden on some
great day in Masonic calendar he
bursts upon your astonished vision
arrayed in full regalia, spangled with
diamonds, glittering with gold, gaudy
with feathers, welding an enormous
sword and the metamorphosis is the
more starting when you hear him ad-
dressed as a Most Worshipful Grand
Prince of Jerusalem, or Sublime
King of the Royal Secret, or some
equally mild and unostentatious title.
He meets his brother Kings and
Princes at the lodge room, and in
grand procession they sweep through
the principle streets in royal style, to
the stirring music of a brass band,
And then you too, wish you were a
Mason, and the small boy drops his
long-cherished ambition to become a
circus clown and gives divided al
legiance to the drum-major of the
band and the members of the royal
craft behind him. But, to speak
more seriously-though this anti
Masonic crusade is hardly worth SER
ious consideration-there is another
side to the popular estimation of
Free Masonry. 1t is well known
that one of it's fundamental princi-
pies is the eternal brotherhood of
man; it breaches the doctrine of
brotherly love and charity; it en-
forces, in its higher orders, at least,
we are told, a belief in the Christian
religion and it includes within its
membership, and has ever included,
many of the very best men among
our citizens-clergymen, soldiers,
teachers, men of business, indeed all
sorts and conditions of men. We do
not propose to discuss the question
of secret societies in the abstract !;
but when any man says that such an
organization (and by the way no per-
son in the Free Press office is con-
nected with it) has debased our form
of government, and that such men do
"acts of horrid blackness" and have
"dark history" he is very rash in
his assertions and wild in his conclu-
sions. There is no need of coming
to the defence of Masonry against
such assailants, for the public mind
was long ago fully made up on the
matter-nor do we now defend it.,
but simply comment on a minor but
not uninteresting event of the day
Free Press.