When Mark Twain Met Carrie Nation

The bar was a magnificent stream of mahogany extending the width of the room. Behind it, a gold-embossed mirror reflected a piano player. He thrashed around the keys, pumping out a new ragtime tune — not so loud as to drown out the constant din and not so well as to make it recognizable. To his right, six men played poker at a table beneath a picture of a reclining, half naked, painted woman imagined to be of dubious moral character. Other women, more fully clothed, no less painted and of moral character unknown, circulated through the room encouraging men to order another drink.

There were a few Freemasons in the crowd, even in this obscure saloon in western Missouri... or maybe it was eastern Kansas. Most in the crowded room hadn't given that much thought and most weren't sober enough to care. Drunk or sober, however, the Masons, along with everyone else in the crowd, were certainly aware of the presence of a very famous Brother that evening.

In the back of the room, Samuel Clemens — better known as Mark Twain — held court surrounded by several amused patrons. It was long before the 18^th Amendment ushered in prohibition in the U.S., but even at the turn of the century, the battle lines were drawn and the debate was heated. Given the setting, Twain had selected that as his topic for the evening.

"I don't think prohibition is practical," he began. "The Germans, you see, prevent it. Look at them. I am sorry to learn that they have just invented a method of making brandy out of Sawdust. Now, what chance will prohibition have when a man can take a rip saw and go out and get drunk with a fence rail? What is the good of prohibition if a man is able to make brandy smashed out of the shingles of his roof, or if he can get delirium tremens by drinking the legs off his kitchen table?"

As the crowd roared, Twain stoked the fire, "Temperate temperance is best. Intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance, while temperate temperance helps it in its fight against intemperate intemperance. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. What marriage is to morality, a properly conducted licensed liquor traffic is to sobriety. In fact, the more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious..."

The mirror behind the bar suddenly shattered as if someone had thrown a bomb at it. The piano playing stopped and the hushed crowd watched in horror as an angry woman smashed bottles, tables and chairs with a small menacing ax. Ranting about the evils of demon rum, she turned the mahogany bar into splinters.

Furious, Twain stomped to the bar. The two glared at each other, nearly breathing fire. For a few seconds each said nothing; they just stood, meeting for the first and only time in their lives, face to face — Mark Twain and Carrie Nation.

"Madam," hissed Twain, "This is insanity."

She shot back, "Drinking is insanity."

"Women like you drive men to drink as the only way to be sane," he sneered.

"I married a fine man... a doctor," she wailed, "He was a pillar of the community, until he started drinking. It ruined him and led him to an early grave."

Twain asked, "A doctor married you?"

"Yes," she replied.

"He must have been looking for a cadaver."

Their meeting was short, but auspicious. As usually happened during Carrie Nation's escapades, the authorities came and took her away, screaming about the alcohol-flooded road to ruination.

"And exhibiting," thought Twain, "exactly the same ugly behavior you might expect from some poor sot who was falling down drunk."

Disclaimer: Accounts of Brother Twain's encounter with famed teetotaler Carrie Nation are, at best, sketchy. All reports of the incident appear to have the same source, making corroboration difficult. It is likely a meeting of this nature took place. While Twain's words about prohibition are his own, the remaining details above are... enhanced... under the authority of liberal use of the doctrine of licentia poetica.

Benedict Arnold

The name Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) has become synonymous with the word "traitor." Arnold was an active member of Hiram Lodge 1, New Haven, Connecticut and is known to have visited other lodges as well. Having been a commander in the American Revolution Arnold became disgruntled when, in 1777, the military promoted several lower ranking officers ahead of him. During the next few years, Arnold fell on hard times financially, and came to need a substantial amount of money to pay debts he had incurred. Although finally promoted and given command of West Point, the American fort on New York's Hudson River (and also the future site of the Armed Forces military academy), Arnold's resentment and debts continued to grow.

Now in charge of West Point, Arnold contacted the British with an offer to surrender the fort in exchange for the enormous sum of £20,000 and a significant position in the British military. He sealed the pact with British Major John Andre but the plot was foiled when Andre was captured and executed. This turn of events exposed Arnold, who fled to the British side, where he commanded a few battles, and then returned to England. In return for his actions, the British made Arnold a Brigadier General, gave him a pension and an additional sum of £6,315 (They did not pay the full amount since the plot failed). He died in relative obscurity some twenty years later.

After the West Point incident Arnold became a despised figure among colonists and remains known today as a vile traitor to his country. Even his own Masonic Lodge and other Lodges he had visited had his name stricken from the records.

Prior to the events leading to his act of sedition, however, Benedict Arnold had been an inspiring soldier. At the very outset of the war, he helped Ethan Allen capture Fort Ticonderoga. He then led an unsuccessful campaign to capture Quebec but rebounded and commanded troops that stopped another British invasion. He also stopped the British in the Mohawk Valley, and forced British General John Burgoyne's surrender.

Arnold was severely wounded in his effort to seize Quebec and again at the Battle of Saratoga. His left leg was shattered in both instances. He was wounded a third time in the same leg at the second battle of Saratoga in October, 1777. The third wound was so severe it nearly killed him, Arnold himself saying it would have been better if he had been hit in the chest. After the third injury Arnold refused to have his leg amputated and the crude repairs to his wound left the leg two inches shorter than the other. Seven months later in May, 1778, Arnold went back to service at Valley Forge and made a heroic entrance to the wild cheers of the troops who had served under him at Saratoga.

It was only after Benedict Arnold's battlefield successes, heroic actions and severe wounds at Saratoga that his financial and military troubles started. Without question, had that final leg wound he received at Saratoga been fatal, he would today be remembered as one of America’s greatest revolutionary heroes instead of its most notorious traitor.

Masons at Sight

On December 3, 2011, Most Worshipful Brother Terry L. Seward, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Illinois, exercised an authority unique to Grand Masters and made Brother Clifton Truman Daniel a Mason at sight. Brother Daniel is the oldest grandson of Most Worshipful Brother Harry S. Truman. It has happened many times before to dozens of men who have become "true and faithful" Brothers among us. Milton Eisenhower, Charles W. Fairbanks, Andrew Mellon, Booker T. Washington, William Howard Taft... all were made Masons at sight. A couple of years ago basketball standout Shaquille O'Neal and Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss became Masons at sight. It might be said a full list of Masons at sight reads like a Who's-Who of Masonry. Yet many Masons have reservations about the practice, feeling it dilutes the experience of becoming a Freemason and somehow indicates the Mason at sight Brother somehow lacks enthusiasm for or knowledge about the fraternity.

The conventions for making a Mason at sight, as most everything else in the Craft, vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In some jurisdictions, including mine — Missouri, the making of a Mason at sight is prohibited. In general, however, the procedure employs some form of ritual and obligation and has guidelines for how many Brothers must be present. According to Mackey, "The mode of exercising the prerogative is this: The Grand Master summons to his assistance not less than six other Freemasons, convenes a Lodge, and without any previous probation, but on sight of the candidates confers the Degrees upon him, after which he dissolves the Lodge and dismisses the Brethren."

Of course, not everyone does things according to Mackey. Still, some Brothers hold the general conception that the process of making a Mason at sight is almost literal: The Grand Master snaps his fingers and, voilà! A new Mason. It doesn't work that way. "In this case," said MWB Seward, "it means there was no petition, no investigation and the ceremony was slightly shorter. I made every effort to ensure Brother Daniel was comfortable doing things this way because I didn't want him to miss anything and didn't want him to feel he wasn't getting the full experience."

And so it was. Brother Clifton was obligated in the Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft degrees and received an impressive and full Master Mason degree. Whatever he missed he could easily pick up by viewing the first two degrees. The entire ceremony was solemn, well-orchestrated and beautifully conducted — far more than a snap of the fingers.

The group of Brothers who witnessed Brother Daniel's raising were virtually unanimous in complimenting the ceremony after it was over. They overwhelmingly congratulated the Grand Lodges of Illinois and Missouri for the work. And Brother Clifton expressed the same sentiments.

To look at it from another point of view, every one of those fortunate to be in attendance in that packed Lodge room in Joliet can now say something very few can claim, "I saw the making of a Mason at sight."