United States Masonic History
Many of the leaders of the American Revolution such as Washington
and Franklin were Masons, but according to the Masonic writer Charles Van
Cott, more Masons remained loyal to the crown than to the colonial cause and
at the start of the revolt only one of the one hundred or so lodges sided with
the patriots. Washington joined the Masonic order in 1752 and at the time of
his election as president was serving as Master of his lodge. Benedict Arnold
was also a Mason.
Masonic orators and writers sometimes get carried away and assert
that most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons, but
the evidence of Masonic affiliation for many of these signers is flimsy or
nonexistent. A recent publication of the Masonic Service Association
identifies only nine of the fifty-six signers as Freemasons, and some
historians put the figure at eight. (Pg. 15-16)
Freemasons did play a more significant, but certainly not dominate, role in
creating the American Constitution. A document whose purposes have been
summarized by President Wilson in his book, Division and Reunion, as
follows,
The Federal government was not by intention a democratic
government. In plan and structure it had been meant to check the sweep and
power of popular majorities. The senate, it was believed, would be a
stronghold of conservatism, if not of aristocracy and wealth. The President,
it was expected, would be the choice of representative men acting in the
electoral college, and not of the people. The Federal judiciary was looked to,
with its virtually permanent membership, to hold the entire structure of
national politics in nice balance against all disturbing influences, whether
of popular impulse or of official overbearance.
Only in the house of representatives were the people to be
accorded an immediate audience and a direct means of making their will
effective in affairs. THE GOVERNMENT HAD, IN FACT, BEEN ORIGINATED AND
ORGANIZED UPON THE INITIATIVE AND PRIMARILY IN THE INTEREST OF THE MERCANTILE
AND WEALTHY CLASSES (emphasis added). Originally conceived as an effort
to accommodate commercial disputes between the States, it had been urged to
adoption by a minority, under the concerted and aggressive leadership of able
men representing a ruling class. The Federalists not only had on their side
the power of convincing argument, but also the pressure of a strong and
intelligent class, possessed of unity and informed by a conscious solidarity
of material interests.
President Wilson's assessment of the motivations of the Masonic framers of
the constitution is restrained compared to the case built by Allan L. Benson in
his book Our Dishonest
Constitution (B. W. Huebsch:1914). He remarks, 'If the patriot fathers
were still living and doing business as they did 125 years ago we should call
many of them grafters' (pg. 5).
The historical precedent for a massive conspiracy to cover-up an
assassination occurred in the early 19th century, when Captain William Morgan
was abducted and murdered by Freemasons for his efforts to expose the
organization's inner working. The crime, which led to the formation to the first
third party political movement in this country, was described in The Address
to the People of the United States issued from the United States
Anti-Masonic Party convention, held in 1830:
After the crime was exposed, a massive cover-up was required and executed by
the Masonic brotherhood. It was also described in The Address to the People
of the United States:
A large proportion of the constables, justices of the peace,
lawyers, judges, sheriffs, and jurymen, of the counties where these acts were
performed, were members of the society, and had taken oaths binding them,...,
to conceal each other's crimes. The high sheriffs were all masons, and at that
time, summoned as grand jurors, at their discretion, any such men as had the
common qualifications. The preface to former President John Quincy Adams's 1847 book Letters on
the Masonic Institution describes the implementation of the crime:
The preface goes on to say of the oaths:
The preface also describes difficulties in energizing the public against the
conspirators:
The results of the Anti-Masonic movement were described in the
Anti-Masonic Scrap Book, published by the National Christian Association
in 1883.
The excitement caused by Morgan's abduction and murder lasted ten
years. And Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, John Quincy Adams, John Marshal,
Wm. H. Seward, Thaddeus Stevens, and other great men condemned the lodge in
the strongest languages men can use. The lodges feigned dead in the free
States, and hid beyond discussion in the slave. The Anti-Masonic army
disbanded, and the lodges silently crept back into power.
This 19th century event could be dismissed, as an irrelevant bit of Masonic
history, except upon investigation one finds Freemasonry has not been inactive.
It has been identified as the parent of a violent and far right American
organization, the Ku Klux Klan. In the book Christianity and American
Freemasonry, by William J Whalen, on pages 17-18 we find:
A former Confederate general and Freemason, Nathan Bedford
Forrest, founded the Ku Klux Klan and served as its first Imperial Wizard.
Albert Pike held the office of Chief Justice of the Ku Klux Klan while he was
simultaneously Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, Southern
Jurisdiction. Pike's racism was well known. He expressed his concept of
Masonic brotherhood succinctly: "I took my obligation to White men, not to
Negroes. When I have to accept Negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall
leave it." Some believe Pike concocted the ritual for the original
KKK.
In The Ku Klux Klan by William Pierce Randel, on page 200 we
learn:
The Klan shared its Protestant restrictiveness with the Masons and
more than once sought to capitalize on the parallel. Kleagles commonly
remarked to prospects, in an offhand manner, that 'the Klan is, in fact, a
Masonic movement.' Many leading Klansmen, in both the old Klan and the new
were Masons; [Hiram] Evans himself gained the 32nd degree.
The institution of Freemasonry remains largely segregated even
today.
Another Masonic spin-off created after the Civil War was the Knights of Labor.
This organization, originally created as a secret society, can be viewed as a
fascinating case study of a failed attempt to use an elaborate, cult like,
'value system' to suppress political activism and control the labor movement. In
his book Inside the Brotherhood, Martin Short points out, "It seems
wherever Masons have common political aims, but cannot pursue them through
Freemasonry, they set up parallel public movements (pg. 239).
Martin Short describes how the OSS, later to become the CIA, reintroduced
Freemasonry into Italy after WWII as a tool "to prop up a sickly democracy
threatened by Soviet-inspired destabilization and the prospect of a communist
election victory" (pg 399). From 1970 through 1981 a far right Masonic
lodge, P2, with links to Ronald Reagan, the Republican party, the CIA, British
Intelligence and British Freemasonry are now believed to have been preparing for
a coup against "clerico-Communists", should they seize power (pg. 399-401). This
lodge was disbanded when its activities became public.
The P2 case is a documented modern example of a Masonic lodge positioned as
an extra-governmental body for the execution a coup. It is therefore not
implausible to suggest that elements within the American Masonic lodges
successfully executed a coup in the United States by assassinating President
John F. Kennedy. In his book, Freemasonry in American History, the
Masonic scholar, A. E. Roberts identifies some of the Masonic participants in
the investigation of the Kennedy assassination,
Johnson had received the Entered Apprentice Degree in Johnson City
Lodge No. 561, Texas, on October 30, 1937. Reasons for him going no farther
are unclear. Until the 1850s becoming an Entered Apprentice made a man a full
member of the lodge conferring the degree. During the 1850s all Grand Lodges
adopted laws making the Master Mason (or Third) degree the criteria for a man
to be considered a Freemason. Before then, all Masonic business was conducted
in the First Degree (and still is in some foreign countries). With the
adoption of the new law, business can be considered only in a Master Mason
Lodge.
One of Johnson's first acts was to order the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to check every aspect of the assassination. The FBI was headed
by J. EDGAR HOOVER, who had become a member of Federal Lodge No. 1, District
of Columbia, on November 9, 1920... But the public wanted more answers
concerning the murder of the President than any agency could provide. So, on
January 29, 1963, Johnson issued an executive order creating a special
commission. It would take the name of the man chosen to head it, Chief Justice
EARL WARREN.
Warren, a Past Grand Master of Masons in California, was joined on
the Commission by two other known Freemasons. They were Senator RICHARD B.
RUSSELL, a member of Winder Lodge No. 33, Georgia, and Representative GERALD
R. FORD of Michigan. John Sherman Cooper, Hale Boggs, Allen W. Dulles, and
John J. McCloy made up the balance of the Commission. (pg. 379)
It is difficult to reliably determine if other members of the Warren
Commission were also Freemasons, because no published records of membership
exist. Even Mr. A. E. Roberts, who should have excellent access to Masonic
sources of information, qualifies his list of Masonic participants on the Warren
Commission to describe 'known Freemasons'. It is clear that millions of
Americans have taken the Masonic oaths to secrecy and obedience. These would
include people in the government and the media, historical, scientific and
medical professions.
It is quite possible Masonic elements representing many interests conferred
and reached a consensus on Kennedy's fate, as occurred in the Morgan case in
1826, each knowing their discussions would be held in confidence.
Their motives would probably be to protect and advance business interests and
their social positions (wealth and power). These would include:
"Whatever bigotry is in evidence in the United States is exhibited
solely by the Roman Catholic hierarchy; that the Canon Law of the Roman Church
and the directives of the Pope validate the fears of the people that the dual
allegiance of American Catholics is a present danger to our free institutions,
and lastly that the people in passing upon the qualifications of a Catholic
candidate for the Presidency will be guided by their knowledge of history and
their great store of plain old-fashioned common horse sense, and their innate
caution not to gamble when their LIBERTIES AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARE AT
STAKE (emphasis added).
Among American citizens there should be no question or suspicion
of allegiance to any foreign power, but in the case of the Roman Catholic
citizen, his church is the guardian of his conscience and asserts that he must
obey its laws and decrees even if they are in conflict with the Constitution
and laws of the United States." CIA resources developed in the anti-Castro campaign Kennedy was canceling,
and redirected against the internal threat, Kennedy, probably executed the
assassination. The investigation, which followed the assassination, was overseen
and directed by Freemasons, who could influence the selection of the rest of the
investigative team and effectively control the results.
The Kennedy assassination appears to have been part a campaign of
assassinations against a generation of leaders, who posed challenges to the
entrenched power structure. The death toll included John F. Kennedy, Robert
Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Viewed as a whole, one is driven
to the conclusion that the anyone advocating or supporting serious social
reforms (share the wealth and power) will not be tolerated in a leadership
position. You can read The CIA's Greatest Hits by Mark Zepezauer for an
overview of the assassination cases. These assassinations suggest the merger of
KKK ethics with CIA resources and techniques.
If we agree with Michael Morrissey's analysis in the article, Rethinking
Chomsky, which states that it is irrefutable that Kennedy was planning to
withdraw from Vietnam 'by the end of 1965' and that Freemason Lyndon Johnson
reversed Kennedy's policy toward Vietnam, it is clear that the escalating
involvement in the Vietnam conflict was driven by the Freemasons who seized
control of the United States government after the assassination of President
Kennedy. Both the American and Vietnamese peoples paid dearly in both squandered
resources and lost lives to pursue the dubious objectives of the illegitimate
Masonic leadership.
The CIA and modern Freemasonry can be viewed as tools for America's corporate
ruling elite. The CIA principally focused on influencing events overseas,
Freemasonry's old-boy and increasingly old-girl networks used to influence
domestic interests. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and
the Kennedy's revealed the undemocratic and brutal character of America's ruling
elates and demonstrates their ultimate control of modern society. The domestic
campaign of social repression and control seems to have moved from
assassinations to manipulation of the
media, intimidation, harassment and reprisals against any person or
organization, which pose a challenge to business interests or the entrenched
power structure.
As Americans are bombarded by the media with distortions
and distracted by trumped up issues, often designed to divide the public, a
massive consolidation of wealth has occurred, labor unions crushed, social
welfare programs attacked and media outlets consolidated. The government and the
judiciary have made a dramatic move to the right, essentially erasing much of
the 'New Deal'. A case can be made that the government helped foment the recent
'terrorist' attacks in Oklahoma and at the World Trade Center
to protect the massive military budget and advance the enactment of broad new
police powers, which strip away American civil liberties and protect the
entrenched power structure. It is remarkable that no effective voice has been
raised in opposition, until one realizes we have lost those voices. We have a
new generation of "pro-business" Democrats and a history of ineffective or, more
likely, dishonest
civil rights, union and progressive political leadership.
A Masonic conspiracy addresses all the points raised by Chomsky at the start
of this article:
The larger question, which still needs to be answered, was asked in an
American Anti-Masonic pamphlet published in 1829 and holds true for today:
Fellow citizens, are men bound by such obligations and possessing
such principals, FIT to be rulers of a FREE PEOPLE." It also warned us:
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society;
and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies,
to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers
of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the
dangers, which are cited to justify it. John F. Kennedy—address to newspaper publishers, April 27, 1961
In 1826, William Morgan, your free fellow citizen, was, by highly
exalted members of the Masonic fraternity, with unlawful violence, seized,--
secretly transported through the country more than one hundred miles, to a
fortress of the United States, then in charge of freemasons, who had prepared
it for his reception,-- there imprisoned, several days and nights, against his
utmost efforts to escape,-- and after suffering the most unmanly insults, and
the most inhuman abuse, he was privately murdered. Previously to his seizure,
numerous meetings of freemasons, in lodges and otherwise, were held for the
purpose of contriving and adopting the most certain means of carrying into
effect, their unlawful objects upon him. These meeting were attended, and the
designs of them approved, by several hundred of the most respectable and
intelligent of the Masonic brethren. They included legislators, judges,
sheriffs, clergymen, generals, physicians, and lawyers. And they proceeded in
discharge of, what they deemed, their Masonic duties.
In this alarming emergency, the agents of government seemed
paralyzed. Our public institutions for the preservation of tranquillity, and
the repression of crime, seemed nugatory.... No arts were left untried by
freemasons to baffle the pursuit of truth, and defeat the administration of
justice. The lion's grip of the order was upon our courts, and loyalty to
that, displaced fealty to the state.
That so many men, at so many separate points, should have acted in
perfect concert in such business as they were engaged in, would scarcely be
believed, without compelling the inference of some distinct understanding
existing between them. That they should have carried into effect the most
difficult part of their undertaking, a scheme of the most daring and criminal
nature, in the midst of a large, intelligent and active population, without
thereby incurring the risk of a full conviction of their guilt and the
consequent punishment, would be equally incredible, but for the light
furnished by the phraseology of the Masonic oath.
Upon the first hasty and superficial glance, a feeling might arise
of surprise that the frivolity of its unmeaning ceremonial, and ridiculous
substitution of its fictions for the sacred history, should not long ago
discredited the thing in the minds of good and sensible men everywhere. Yet
upon closer and more attentive examination, this first feeling vanishes, and
makes way for astonishment at the ingenious contrivance displayed in the
construction of the whole machine. A more perfect agent for the devising and
execution of conspiracies against the church or state could scarcely have been
conceived.
Multitudes preferred to believe the Masonic oaths and penalties to
be ceremonies, childish, ridiculous and unmeaning, rather than to suppose them
intrinsically and incurably vicious. They refused to credit the fact that men
whom they respected as citizens could have made themselves parties to any
promise whatsoever to do acts illegal, unjust and wicked. Rather than to go so
far, they preferred to throw themselves into a state of resolute unbelief of
all that could be said against them.
Ought a secret society to exist amongst us whose members can
commit murder and yet escape punishment? MASONS HAVE done this, and their
brethren ... are sworn to protect them.
It is to be hoped that an institution whose very principles lead
directly to such horrid outrages, and which is entirely made up of
dissimulation and fraud, will be completely suppressed in this country and
throughout the world, and that a barrier be instituted to prevent it from ever
again polluting the earth with its insidious influence. But the public must
not expect to accomplish this desirable object without unwanted pains and
incessant vigilance; their task is but commencing, and, should they lack in
circumspection or perseverance, the monster will yet flourish with more power
and commit greater enormities than ever.
Resource:Acacia
Press
