How Do the Freemasons Fit into U.S. History?

We keep hearing about the Freemasons in pop culture movies and books, but how much do we actually know about how they fit into U.S. history? This episode, Gary and Haley are joined by Brad Kohanke, Freemason historian and author, to discuss insights on the Free Mason’s beliefs and values up through the present. Where do we see Masonic symbols around us, and what do they mean?

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Transcript

Intro/Outro (00:06)
From the Bill of Rights Institute, Fabric of History leaves together US history founding principles and what all of this means to us today. Join us as we pull back the curtains of the past to see what's inside.

Gary (00:21)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Fabric of History from the Bill of Rights Institute. My name is Gary Colletti, and I'm hosting this week. You're usually hearing Mary Patterson, our usual host, but she is off doing some very important content writing and development that we're very excited for you to see coming soon. But for now, I'm joined by a voice you have heard on every episode and now is going to be joining us, Haley Watson, why don't you say Hi, Haley.

Haley (00:54)
Hi, everyone. I'm very excited to be part of the more live portion. So not replacing Mary by any means, but hopefully doing an adequate job.

Gary (01:03)
I'm sure more than adequate. Again, Haley is the producer of every one of our episodes, and you've heard her in the intros and outros of all of our episodes. So we're happy to join us. More importantly, though, our guest today is a fantastic guest for a conversation we're really looking forward to. Let me set the scene a little bit. So working at the Bill of Rights Institute, we're here in the D. C. Metro area, and of course, we work in US history and civics, and we're steeped in American culture. And sometimes there are topics for this podcast that are just right under your nose. If you are in this area and really anywhere across the country, you might happen upon symbols and images and important figures of US history that all have something in common. They're connected to the Masons. Now, this is an organization that has been around a long time and is greatly steeped in our US history. And we realized it's worth going into a little bit. So who better than our guests today that we are thrilled to have Mr. Bradley Edward Kohanke. He, just as a background, he graduated from Texas A and M University. He worked for many years in human resources management. He's now working on a graduate degree in comparative religion and philosophy. And we're going to talk a little bit about a book that he's written not that long ago. But for today's topic, it's really important to note that Mr. Kohanke is a past master of the Davy Crockett Lodge District, deputy Grandmaster for Texas. He was grand orator. In 2019, he was chairman of the Scottish Rite Valley of San Antonio. He is an ordained Unitarian Minister and serves as Worshipful master of the Merit Lodge Number 727, a traditional observance Lodge in Texas. And he is the author of Light Reflections, Philosophical Thoughts and Observations of a Texas Freemason. I've said quite a lot, but we wanted to welcome you, if I may call you Brad, to say hello to our listeners.

Brad (03:17)
Well, thank you very much, Gary. It's a pleasure to be here. And an honor to speak with you all.

Gary (03:22)
Thank you so much. So clearly from your background, you can help us a lot with some of the big questions that we have about this organization and most importantly, what our core question is, which is how have the Masons been part of US history? So if I can kick off our conversation, here's my first one, and it's not a small question, I'm not known for my small questions. What are some of the things right off the bat that we should know about the Masons even before starting a conversation about their relationship throughout US history?

Brad (03:56)
The first thing that everybody should be made aware of is that there's a lot of misinformation out there because the Masonic fraternity was so secretive for so long. It lends itself, unfortunately, to a lot of conspiracy theories and negative press throughout the years. But in essence, what it really is is a school of moral philosophy. And we use symbolisms and metaphors and allegories to teach moral lessons. And that's our primary function in society. And those lessons have lent themselves very handily to the formation of the type of government and the type of country that we live in today.

Haley (04:46)
My connection to Mason starts really just growing up in DC, I just have a natural curiosity. Driving by the Scottish Rite temple on 16th street, a few blocks up from the White House in the National Mall, kind of seeing different symbols, just wanting to know more about that story and where it started.

Brad (05:06)
Yeah, that Scottish. Rite temple in Washington, DC, is the headquarters for the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite and they give tours of that building. So if you're ever interested in seeing the inside, they are more than happy to show it to you that's another misconception is that we're still kind of a secret society, but we give tours of our buildings and we're more than willing to talk about ourselves. It's just people don't ask us very many questions anymore.

Haley (05:36)
Yeah. Well, maybe this podcast is a good start, but no. Yeah. Just doing some research overall on Washington and its history, looking at the mapping of DC, Pierre Charles L'Enfant to design the basic plan for the city was a Freemason. And George Washington, probably one of the most arguably famous Freemasons, approved that plan. There's also architect James Hoban, who designed the White House, Benjamin Latrobe, architect of the US Capitol, and Robert Mills, who was responsible for the Washington Monument. And they were all Masons. So it just really kind of blows my mind that we're in this kind of living history of masonry in DC.

Brad (06:18)
Yeah. And interestingly enough, at the beginning of the building of each of those edifices, the Masonic fraternity was involved in laying the cornerstone. And then there's a specific ceremony involved in laying those cornerstones. And that ceremony is still in use today. We lay cornerstones for New elementary schools, intermediate schools, high schools, fire stations, anybody that would like a Masonic dedication ceremony? We are more than happy to provide that. And then that cornerstone gets inlaid into the side of the building with the date that it was dedicated.

Haley (06:55)
But, yeah, I saw a news story about there's a ceremony for the 225th anniversary of the Lane of the capital cornerstone on September 18, 2018. And the event featured members of Congress, officials from the United States Capitol Historical Society, Mount Vernon, as well as a good number of Washington area Free Masons, bearing with them artifacts from the original ceremony. And there was that Mason symbol, I believe it's called a square encompass. I don't know if you want to go into that now, kind of what that means.

Brad (07:27)
Well, those are symbols from the old operative Masonry. The stonemason skills. They're architectural tools. And we utilize those in order to remind ourselves of the various moral lessons that are taught during the degrees that we receive in the Lodge. The square, for example, reminds us to deal squarely with each other, to be honest with each other, to be forthright with each other. So when we see these tools out in the real world, it reminds us of a moral lesson that we learned. So for us, they're reminders. For people who have not been through those lessons, they don't mean much, but none of it is secret. Nobody asks us very often the Compass, obviously, when you utilize it, it draws a circle. But for us, it draws the limit of the boundary on which we're to allow our passions not to go beyond. So we're trying to control those parts of ourselves, like anger and jealousy and things of that nature, to not get to the point where they go beyond a certain level. So that Compass reminds us that we're supposed to control our passions. And when we see those, it reminds us of the lesson. That's why symbols are so important. It would take me hours to explain the lesson that goes along with it. But now that I know the lesson, all I have to do is see that symbol. And it reminds me.

Haley (09:14)
First of all, we really kind of need to establish where Masons came from. There's a lot of talk of them there in our history. But really, what was the start of Mason?

Brad (09:27)
Yeah, there's a couple of different schools of thought, and there's not really one person that can speak on behalf of all Masonry. I can give you my opinion. Everybody pretty much agrees upon the idea that the organization of Freemasonry began out of the stonemason's Guild in Europe. During the building of the cathedrals, there were expert workmen who actually labored in the quarries and formed the stones that were used to build the temples. And then there were these master architects who drew the designs by which the workmen were to build these cathedrals. And you didn't really go to a College and receive a diploma or a collegiate ring or anything to prove that you knew how to do these things. So they had to pass along these secret identification modes or recognition modes. And some of them were passwords, some of them were handshakes. So when a person came into town and said, Look, I know how to build an arch or I know how to build a flying buttress on the side of a Cathedral, they couldn't ask for his diploma. He had to prove himself knowledgeable in those areas, so he would give them the secret word or the secret handshake, and then they would put him to work. But as time went on and the cathedrals were being built less and less in the various parts of the country, those guys had to travel around, right? And they had to seek work. And it really became the first middle class of society because they didn't owe allegiance to any particular King or Kingdom or Prince or Pope or priest or religious sect or anything, they were free to move around the country. So they became known as Free Masons. Well, after the Cathedral period started to die down, and they weren't doing that anymore, those guilds started to lose people, and they started to bring in guys of standing from society, sometimes royalty, sometimes men of science, men of philosophy. And then you start to get this speculative aspect of Freemasonry, the moral values and the lessons, and the adoption of the architect's tools in order to teach those lessons. So that is the foundational history of the organization. As far as the ideology of the organization, I'm part of the school of the romantic idea that it goes back into remote antiquity. The methodologies that we use the idea of teaching moral virtues to the individual, and then that individual conducting himself in a manner that benefits society, the society itself, the government establishing a moral guide to how it governs itself and its people. Those ideas stretch all the way back into the ancient mystery schools of Greece and Egypt.

Brad (12:51)
You see, throughout history, these guys, I call it the underground stream of knowledge. But it's really the ideas of freedom and democracy and self-government and things of that nature. They kind of pop up in history every once in a while, and they get stamped out by tyrants or superstitions or the dark ages, for example. But in the establishment of Freemasonry and the guilds and their secret methods of identifying each other, these philosophers kind of found a convenient home in which to live and propagate their ideals. And that's my opinion of what developed after the operative guilds became more of a speculative society.

Gary (13:42)
This is fascinating. If I can jump in. You mentioned self-government. You mentioned, which gets us very excited here the Fabric of History. You mentioned philosophical ideas and how they interact with how people govern, how societies, not only associations, but cultures develop. If I can fast forward in time a little bit, could we speak a bit about the connection between these big philosophical ideas within the Masons and the Enlightenment period? Because that's a big part of sort of the foundations of how we talk about our US history and the other civic things that we talk about.

Brad (14:23)
Well, yeah. And if you view the Enlightenment period in Masonic context, it happens at about the same time that speculative Masons are allowed to start joining these operative guilds. And so these lessons, these allegories these metaphors that are taught through the degrees of Freemasonry, begin to expand through the continent of Europe and on the Isle of Great Britain and then ultimately over to the colonies in the United States, where, in my opinion, its beliefs and ideals came to fruition. The establishment of a government of the people, by the people, for the people, is kind of the manifestation of how the Masons have governed themselves for centuries, and it finally took shape in a country on the Earth. And obviously, the Earth has not seen democracy since ancient Greece. So here we are.

Haley (15:35)
It's easy to find online that 13 of the 39 signers of the Constitution were Masons. Overall, looking at our founding generations, we have George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Marquis de Lafayette, John Hancock, Aaron Burr, James Monroe list goes on, Andrew Jackson, James Polk getting to the 1800s. But I know this is a big question to answer, but how do you see kind of these Masonic leaders fitting into the founding specifically, how do you see their Masonic ideas coming out in the Founders' actions and ideas?

Brad (16:11)
There were Masons on both sides of the Revolution. There were Masons on both sides of the Civil War. So the fraternity itself is not necessarily engaged in revolution. All right, they steer clear of politics. I have friends who are far left. I have friends who are far right. We don't talk about politics in the Lodge. We don't talk about religion in the Lodge. But there are certain moral lessons that are taught in the various degrees of Freemasonry that the Founding fathers took to heart. And the idea of living as a free people, pulling together the various races and religions and ethnic groups from around the world, putting them together in one place, and seeing whether or not ultimately they can live together peacefully and govern themselves, it kind of makes the United States the great experiment. And you guys have heard the country referred to that before because if we can live together peacefully and if we can govern ourselves if it works here, it'll work everywhere. So that's an idea that has worked here for well over 200 years and is kind of sweeping the globe now. And there's some resistance to that, and there always will be. Going back to the foundation of the country, I think there was very little in common among the various colonies, especially between the north and the south. And one of the few things they did have in common was these ideals that were taught by the Masonic fraternity.

Haley (18:00)
Do you think the fraternity changed after it came to America? Were any of the basic principles different, or was it a natural progression?

Brad (18:09)
Well, yeah, Freemasonry on the European continent was a little bit different than it was in Great Britain and in the United States. The vast majority of Masonic jurisdictions practice Masonry, as it was done in Great Britain. The Scottish Rite, which is an appendant body of Freemasonry, is run more like Freemasonry was run in France at the time. And the revolution in France was another example of a Masonic-led revolution. As a matter of fact, their motto, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, came straight out of the Masonic fraternity. They could have used the Compass to circumscribe their passions. I think it got a little bit out of hand after their revolution, but the idea, at least to start with, was right. But as far as the evolution of Freemasonry in this country, it does change over time. The lessons, the moralities, the philosophies don't change, but the operations within the organization itself do evolve. We had a huge increase in membership after World War I, and then it probably doubled again after World War II. The guys that had gone overseas to fight met with other Masons, obviously, but more importantly, they formed this Brotherhood, this bond that they formed in battle. And when they got home, they were looking for something to not replace it, but act as a substitute for it. And they found it on our fraternity. So we went from a couple of 100,000 members in the United States to several million members in the United States, and it started to become more of a social club for these guys to get together and reminisce and have dinner. They went through the degrees and they learned the lessons, but they didn't delve into the philosophies like they had in the previous century. Now, since the 60s, the membership levels have declined, but the interests of the membership are now gearing back towards those philosophical and moral ideals. So you're seeing a lot more books come out and a lot more people willing to talk about it and things of that nature. So, yeah, it ebbs and flows. The membership goes up and down, and the operations kind of change with the times, but the lessons remain the same.

Gary (21:18)
I think part of what this conversation is highlighting about that endurance is this through-line of almost timeless principles, but also virtues. And that's, again, something that we're very interested in here. When we talk about principles, we look at them. There's a number that we teach about in all of our materials and our programs that range from principles about humanity, ideas like equality and justice all the way up to governing principles, separation of powers and the rule of law for everyone and things like this and how they intertwine. But we also do like to focus on virtues, like how to live these things, how to form habits of life that go in certain directions. I was wondering if we could speak a little more about the core tenets.

Brad (22:12)
Sure. Let me start by just saying that Freemasonry is a very spiritually oriented organization, but we're not a religion. As a matter of fact, we take in and accept men of all faiths. The only requirement is that you have faith. You have to have faith in something greater than yourself. There are two common principles that are interlaced through the beliefs of all major religions of the world. And one is that there is a God who loves us, and the other one is that we should love one another. So this first principle isn't our job. It's not the job of the Masonic fraternity to teach you how to worship, who to worship when to worship. We don't claim to have the keys to Salvation or any of that stuff that's left to your Church or your synagogue or your mosque or your temple. The Masonic fraternity focuses on the second one to love one another. That's why we call each other brother in Lodge. And outside of Lodge is we have established a familial bond with each other. And so the lessons that we teach are illustrations of what it looks like in everyday life to actually practice that love for one another. We make obligations to each other to help one another and the world at large. We promise to aid someone if they're in distress. We promise to whisper good counsel in their ear if they're going off the rails and doing something maybe that they shouldn't do. We promise not to talk badly about each other behind our backs or in front of our faces. All of these things are symbolized in the various plays that go on in the degrees that we confer within the organization.

Haley (24:25)
Very nice. Yeah. It's interesting how the organization has progressed like you were talking about with the founding of America, but then also how you have these symbols, tools coming from centuries and centuries ago that kind of Rue you. And also it's interesting to see that founders and other significant Masons went through the same kind of ceremonies and had the same initiations and discussions that you have now using the grounding principles from the origin.

Brad (25:00)
And then again, we're all human. There are probably members within our fraternity that shouldn't be in our fraternity, people that come in for ideas that maybe they shouldn't have come in for, like, advancing their business opportunities, or people that think that there's some profound secret or some cabal that control the levers of government behind the scenes, and they don't want to be left out. They want to be part of it. And then those people eventually are disappointed and stopped coming to Lodge because those are not reasons to join.

Gary (25:43)
If what we're learning through this conversation is that it's quite the opposite of secrecy, that Masons and fraternity are really part of the fabric of communities across the country. What are some things that those of us outside of the Masons who are not members might see or notice or pay attention to that's out there in our country?

Brad (26:19)
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the Statue of Liberty in New York. There's such a deep Masonic connection to that that most people don't know about. First of all, it was built by a Freemason in France, given as a gift from the Freemasons of France to the citizens of the United States. And when it was erected, there was a ceremony of dedication presided over by the Grand Master of New York. And it's funny that nobody knows about that stuff. I mean, it was in the papers at the time, and at the time, everybody knew about it. But then over time, people have kind of lost the connection to the fact that that's a pretty major Masonic symbol. You know, the Statue of Liberty enlightening the world. It's a symbol of enlightenment, and it's a symbol of this idea of bringing together people from all various backgrounds to our shores and saying, Come here, live with us, live together. Let's show the world that we can live together in peace and govern ourselves and act as an example for the rest of the world. The time for tyranny is over. And that was the first big symbol that jumped into my head.

Brad (27:50)
Other things may not be so obvious. I'll relay a personal anecdote. One of the symbols that we use to teach a moral lesson is a gavel, okay? And it's supposed to remind us that we're to be working on breaking off all of the vices and superfluities of our life and our personalities so much like a gavel and a chisel is used to smooth off the rough edges of stone to make it fit for use in a building. The gavel is supposed to remind us that we're smoothing off our own rough edges. So anytime I'm out in public and I see a gavel or a hammer or anything remotely similar to that, I'm reminded of that lesson.

Gary (28:51)
I'm hearing a combination of interesting things, one embracing what I find as a former teacher of philosophy back in the day. Philosophical ideas, big ideas are just amazing. But also there having symbols, having something to tie them into that you see in day-to-day life is really great as well. As you're saying you don't just jump from one to the other. It takes work, it takes knowing stories, it takes research and learning, and thinking. And it's an ongoing thing. It's not just snap your fingers and suddenly everything makes sense to you, but rather an ongoing. But I think it's joyful being able to see evidence and to know that others are doing it as well, and that big philosophical ideas don't have to be scary, but rather are part of everything we do in civil society. So, Brad, as recently as last month, you published a new book. Would you mind sharing a little bit of just a small preview of some of the things and ideas that might have come out of it?

Brad (29:53)
Yeah, it was a compilation of stories that I had written for my Lodge newsletter over the course of about a decade. A lot of them are taken from personal experiences that I've had in my life or observed in others. Do you remember those books called Chicken Soup for the Soul? I kind of based it on that idea. It was supposed to be a Chicken Soup for the Mason Soul, but that title probably would have gotten me into some Copyright problems. They're easy to read, two, three pages long stories that highlight the various teachings within the Masonic fraternity, and hopefully we'll allow people to come to their own conclusions on how to work on their own self-improvement.

Gary (30:50)
It's one of the interesting things I think about philosophical principles and virtues and these big ideas is it's at the same time individual, but also part of society and dealing with other people and being both not only internal but external as well? The Masons are a great example of associations like this. How do you see the role of associations like the Masons in society in general writ large out there among lots of people?

Brad (31:21)
We talked a lot so far about how the Masonic philosophies and traditions will help the growth of the individual. And ultimately, what helps the individual grow the most is doing for others, right? It's the idea of faith in action. And so when we refer to the Masonic organizations like what we call the individual Masonic lodges or the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry or even the Shriners, are all part of that same umbrella. You look at the type of work that they do for society at the Lodge level. They give out scholarships every year to students who, maybe because of academics, might not have earned the necessary monies to go to College. So some lodges will focus on trade school scholarships in order to get these people trained and ready to enter the workforce in a high-paying job that is necessary. A lot of lodges participate in Texas in what we call the Fantastic Teeth Program, where they deliver teeth care kits, including toothbrushes and toothpaste, to all the first graders in the city. You'd be amazed. I've participated in that for years and years. And there have been times when we've gone into a school and we've given out these packets that have a toothbrush in it, and one of the kids will come up and say, this is the first time I've had my own toothbrush.

Brad (33:08)
it's amazing that those types of things still happen. So we participate in that. We have the Take Time to Read program. We'll go to a school campus and sit in the library and read with the kids. We give bicycles at Christmas. There's tons of different charitable efforts just going on at the local Lodge levels. But with the Scottish Rite, they have what they call dyslexic learning centers, where they teach children with dyslexia how to overcome that disability and become fully functional and successful members of society. There was a curriculum developed in the Scottish Rite Hospital up in Dallas that has proven to be the most effective method of overcoming that disability. And we did it for decades without ever saying anything about it to anybody. We live by that old English proverb that good deed dies when it's spoken of. All of these things are things that Masons do, kind of behind the scenes. And we don't pound our chest and say, look what we did.

Haley (34:20)
You don't have a PR firm or anything?

Brad (34:22)
No. And it's odd. Nobody will ever invite anybody to become a Mason. One of the rules is you have to seek it out and ask. And we have a phrase in Texas to be one, ask one. You got to ask a Mason what's this all about? And that opens the floodgates.

Haley (34:42)
So where do you think someone can go to learn more about the Freemasons? I know it's not by watching National Treasure, but, is it really just by asking people in the organization, or is there a good website? Where's the next step?

Brad (34:59)
Yeah, it's always best to get the information from the horse's mouth, because National Treasure was a great movie. Any publicity is good publicity. And the Dan Brown books. Dan did a lot of very good research in order to come up with his book of intrigue. There's not a lot of truth in it other than some of the symbolisms, but it's a fascinating story. The fraternity itself has this reputation for being secretive, and there are things that we retain as secrets among ourselves that it wouldn't take much effort on your part to find if you Googled them on the Internet. But this idea of secrecy, the need for maintaining our secret words and our secret handshakes, and the secrecy of our ritual, in my opinion, in this day and age in this country, it doesn't need to be a secret anymore. But it all depends on where you are geographically or when you are historically, as to whether or not that's the case. If you were in Nazi Germany during the 1930s and you were a Freemason, you better keep it secret because 200,000 of us went to the concentration camps and never came out. And it was because Hitler knew that we as an organization would not tolerate tyranny of like that he was practicing.

Brad (36:30)
The same is true in the old Soviet Union, where you couldn't believe in God, you had to believe in the state as the ultimate authority. So if you're in an organization that requires a belief in a deity, you might find yourself in Siberia in some gulag somewhere. We keep a lot of that stuff to ourselves just in case the curtain of darkness descends and we have to keep that candlelit behind closed doors to pass on to the next generation.

Gary (37:06)
You certainly have a way with imagery for a podcast and I think our listeners will appreciate that greatly. But in all seriousness, we appreciate your sharing, we appreciate your beginning us to want to learn more and to dig even further and to reveal a lot of these stories and ideas and I think that's great. I think you've really shown us not just how Masons have been part of US history, but culture and really globally. I think that's been really interesting so we could go on and on, but this has been a great conversation with a lot to think about for myself. I just wanted to thank you for chatting with us, Brad.

Brad (37:51)
Well, thank you for having me. It was an honor and a pleasure to be with you and thank you for letting me talk about my favorite topic.

Haley (37:59)
All right, great. And if you have any questions for Brad or general comments about the episode, we'd love to hear from you. We are at comments@fabricofhistory.org or find us on any social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram we got them all covered and as always, keep asking questions.

Intro/Outro (38:21)
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exists in a free society. Check out our educational resources and programs on our website mybri.org. Any questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you. Just email us at comments@fabricofhistry.org and don't forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay connected and informed about future episodes. Thank you for listening.