Great Freemasons: James Buchanan, Jr. (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868)

I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country.
James Buchanan, Jr. (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868)

James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States (1857–1861), serving immediately prior to the American Civil War.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Buchanan


(Initiated: December 1l, 1816, Lodge No. 43, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Brother Buchanan became Worshipful Master of Lodge No. 43 1822-1823; and in 1824 was appointed District Deputy Grand Master for the Counties of Lancaster, Lebanon and York.)

Great Freemasons: William Pinkney (March 17, 1764 – February 25, 1822)

The generous mind, that has adequate ideas of the inherent rights of mankind and knows the value of them, must feel its indignation rise against the shameful traffic that introduces slavery into a country which seems to have been designed by providence as an asylum for those whom the arm of power had persecuted and not as a nursery for wretches stripped of every privilege which heaven intended for its rational creatures, and reduced to a level with—nay, become themselves—the mere goods and chattels of their masters. 3
Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour; but the law of the land, which (however oppressive and unjust, however inconsistent with the great groundwork of the late Revolution and our present frame of government) we can not in prudence or from a regard to individual rights abolish, has authorized a slavery as bad or perhaps worse than the most absolute, unconditional servitude that ever England knew in the early ages of its empire, under the tyrannical policy of the Danes, the feudal tenures of the Saxons, or the pure villanage of the Normans.
William Pinkney (March 17, 1764 – February 25, 1822)

http://www.bartleby.com/268/8/19.html

William Pinkney (March 17, 1764 – February 25, 1822) was an American statesman and diplomat, and the seventh U.S. Attorney General.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pinkney
(Amanda Lodge 12, Annapolis, MD)

Great Freemasons: Phil Collins (born January 30, 1951)

The world is in your hands, now use it.
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO (born January 30, 1951)

(SOHO Lodge No. 3)

Great Freemasons: George Edward Pickett (January 16, 1825 – July 30, 1875)

Up men! And to your posts! And let no man forget today, that you are from Old Virginia!
George Edward Pickett (January 16, or 25, 1825 – July 30, 1875)

George Edward Pickett was a career United States Army officer who became a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He is best remembered for his participation in the futile and bloody assault at the Battle of Gettysburg that bears his name, Pickett's Charge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pickett
(Dove Lodge 51, Richmond, VA)

Great Freemasons: Fred Pabst Jr. (November 3, 1869 - March 1, 1977)

"Fred Pabst Jr. was to skiing what Dr. Spock was to babies."
Gov. Thomas Salmon (Vermont)


Fred Pabst Jr. (November 3, 1869 - March 1, 1977) was the heir to the Pabst fortune, ski enthusiast and creator of several ski resorts.


http://www.newenglandskihistory.com/biographies/pabstfred.php


( Lafayette Lodge 265, Milwaukee)

Great Freemasons: Francis Davis Millet (November 3, 1848 – April 15, 1912)

Francis Davis Millet (November 3, 1848 – April 15, 1912) was an American painter, sculptor, and writer who died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Davis_Millet

Reading the Story of Oenone (painting), The Detroit Institute of Arts, ca. 1883.

An Autumn Idyll

(Kane Lodge 454, NY)

Great Freemasons: Richard Dreyfuss (born October 29, 1947)

"I really think that living is the process of going from complete certainty to complete ignorance."
Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (born October 29, 1947) is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Goodbye Girl.
Dreyfuss won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1977 for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated in 1995 for Mr. Holland's Opus. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for Screen Actors Guild Awards in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries categories.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dreyfuss



On June 10, 2011, Dreyfuss was made a Master Mason by the Grand Master of Masons of the District of Columbia at the Washington DC Scottish Rite building, as well as a 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason and is a member of the Valley of the District of Columbia, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite

Great Freemasons: Cornelius Hedges (October 28, 1831 - April 29, 1907)

CORNELIUS HEDGES. Born in Westfield, Mass., Oct. 28, 1831; died in Helena, Mont., Apr. 29, 1907. A member of the 1870 Washburn party of Yellowstone explorers, proponent of the idea of reserving the Yellowstone region in the public interest (this was the third expression of the idea), and special correspondent for the Helena Herald.

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/haines1/iee4a.htm#hedges

(Helena City Lodge 10, Colorado)

Great Freemasons: Alfred Paul Murrah (October 27, 1904 – October 30, 1975)

“Get a good education. Decide what you want to do. Whatever you like to do best is exactly the thing you are fitted for . . . be diligent and decent . . . don’t begrudge the fact that you have to work for what you get. The greatest rewards in living come from living outside and beyond one’s self . . . the greatest qualities a man can have are simplicity and humility.”
Alfred Paul Murrah (October 27, 1904 – October 30, 1975)


Alfred Paul Murrah (October 27, 1904 – October 30, 1975) was an American attorney and judge, best known for being the namesake of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which was destroyed in the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_P._Murrah


Capital City Lodge 518, OK

Great Freemasons: Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919)

You ask that Mr. Taft shall "let the world know what his religious belief is." This is purely his own private concern; it is a matter between him and his Maker, a matter for his own conscience; and to require it to be made public under penalty of political discrimination is to negative the first principles of our Government, which guarantee complete religious liberty, and the right to each to act in religious affairs as his own conscience dictates. Mr. Taft never asked my advice in the matter, but if he had asked it, I should have emphatically advised him against thus stating publicly his religious belief.

The demand for a statement of a candidate’s religious belief can have no meaning except that there may be discrimination for or against him because of that belief. Discrimination against the holder of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against men of other faiths. The inevitable result of entering upon such a practice would be an abandonment of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion to the dreadful conditions of religious dissension which in so many lands have proved fatal to true liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civilization.

To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life. You are entitled to know whether a man seeking your suffrages is a man of clean and upright life, honorable in all of his dealings with his fellows, and fit by qualification and purpose to do well in the great office for which he is a candidate; but you are not entitled to know matters which lie purely between himself and his Maker. If it is proper or legitimate to oppose a man for being a Unitarian, as was John Quincy Adams, for instance, as is the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, at the present moment Chaplain of the Senate, and an American of whose life all good Americans are proud then it would be equally proper to support or oppose a man because of his views on justification by faith, or the method of administering the sacrament, or the gospel of salvation by works. If you once enter on such a career there is absolutely no limit at which you can legitimately stop.
Theodore Roosevelt,

LETTER TO MR. J. C. MARTIN CONCERNING RELIGION AND POLITICS 
November 6, 1908

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/307.txt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt ( October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th President of the United States (1901–1909)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt


Matinecock Lodge No. 806, Oyster Bay, New York

Great Freemasons: John North Willys (October 25, 1873 – August 26, 1935)

John North Willys (October 25, 1873 – August 26, 1935), father of the Willys Jeep, was an American automotive pioneer and statesman.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Willys


(Barton Smith Lodge 613, Toledo)

Great Freemasons: Manly P. Hall

Great Freemasons: Ellsworth Milton (E.M.) Statler (October 26, 1863 – April 16, 1928)

Ellsworth Milton (E.M.) Statler (October 26, 1863 – April 16, 1928), founder of Statler Hotels, was an American hotel businessman born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Milton_StatlerDeMolay Lodge 498, Buffalo, NY

Great Freemasons: Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914)

Laws are never as effective as habits.
Adlai Stevenson I


Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) served as the 23rd Vice President of the United States (1893–1897). Previously, he served as a Congressman from Illinois in the late 1870s and early 1880s. After his subsequent appointment as Assistant Postmaster General of the United States during Grover Cleveland's first administration (1885–1889), he fired many Republican postal workers and replaced them with Southern Democrats. This earned him the enmity of the Republican-controlled Congress, but made him a favorite as Grover Cleveland's running mate in 1892, and he duly became 23rd Vice President of the United States.

In office, he supported the free-silver lobby against the gold-standard men like Cleveland, but was praised for ruling in a dignified, non-partisan manner.

In 1900, he ran for Vice President with William Jennings Bryan. Although unsuccessful, he was the first ex-Vice President ever to win re-nomination for that post with a different Presidential candidate. Stevenson was the grandfather of Adlai Stevenson II, a Governor of Illinois and twice Democratic Presidential candidate.



(Bloomington Lodge 43, Illinois)


Photo by Napoleon Sarony (1821–1896)

Great Freemasons: Allen B. Wilson (October 18,1824 – April 29,1888)

Allen Benjamin Wilson (October 18,1824 – April 29,1888) was an American inventor famous for designing, building and patenting some of the first successful sewing machines He invented both the vibrating and the rotating shuttle designs which, in turns, dominated all home lockstitch sewing machines. With various partners in the 19th century he manufactured reliable sewing machines using the latter shuttle type.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_B._Wilson


(Harmony Lodge 42, Waterbury, CT)

Great Freemasons: Willliam C. Menninger (October 15, 1899 – September 1966)

William Claire Menninger (October 15, 1899 – September 1966) was a co-founder with his brother Karl and his father of The Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, which is an internationally known center for treatment of behavioral disorders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Menninger

Great Freemasons: Joseph Rucker Lamar (October 15, 1857 – January 2, 1916)

Joseph Rucker Lamar (October 15, 1857 – January 2, 1916) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court appointed by President William Howard Taft. A cousin of former associate justice Lucius Lamar, he served from 1911 until his death in 1916.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Rucker_Lamar


(Webb Lodge 166, Augusta, GA)

Great Freemasons: Henry Dodge (October 12, 1782 – June 19, 1867)

Henry Dodge (October 12, 1782 – June 19, 1867) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, Territorial Governor of Wisconsin and a veteran of the Black Hawk War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dodge


Louisiana Lodge 109 (MO)

Great Freemasons: Trent Lott

We cannot forget the little things we take for granted in America that remain the disdain of dictators and terrorists throughout the world.
Trent Lott

Chester Trent Lott, Sr. (born October 9, 1941) is a former United States Senator from Mississippi, who served in numerous leadership positions in both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate. He entered Congress as one of the first of a wave of Republicans winning seats in Southern states that had been solidly Democratic. He became Senate Majority Leader, then fell from power after praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist Dixiecrat presidential bid.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Lott


(Masonic Life: Shortly after completing law school and returning to the Gulf Coast, he had petitioned, been accepted and initiated an Entered Apprentice in Pascagoula Lodge No. 419 on September 18, 1967. However, the busy schedule of a congressional aide and freshman House member made advancement a challenge. Nonetheless, he was finally passed to the Degree of Fellowcraft on August 23, 1975, and raised a Master Mason on August 29, 1975. That October, Brother Lott took most of his Scottish Rite Degrees in the Valley of Gulfport, but did not receive his 32nd Degree until October 23, 1976. He subsequently received the K.C.C.H. in 1983 and was coroneted a 33° Inspector General Honorary on December 12, 1987. )

Great Freemasons: Leonard Wood (October 9, 1860 – August 7, 1927)

Leonard Wood (October 9, 1860 – August 7, 1927) was a physician who served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Military Governor of Cuba, and Governor General of the Philippines. Early in his military career, he received the Medal of Honor. Wood also holds officer service #2 in the Regular Army (John Pershing holds officer service #1). He was present at the 1906 First Battle of Bud Dajo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Wood

(Anglo Saxon Lodge 137, NY)



(Art: "Leonard Wood - Maverick in the Making 1882-1921" (1860–1927) by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) oil on canvas, 1903 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)