Note From the Editor: In a speech at an annual Grand Lodge communication, R.W. Bro. Louis Block, P.G.M. of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Iowa delves into the symbolism of flags in Freemasonry and the reception of them thereof in open lodge. This speech was published in the September 1917 edition of "The Builder" magazine. As we gear up for the 4th of July, I thought this would be appropriate. Enjoy!
At the public ceremonies preliminary to the opening of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, the British, French and American flags were each presented by a girl dressed in the white nurses uniform of the Red Cross. When the British flag was borne down the aisle to the stage the quartet sang "Rule Britannia" and the flag was received and welcomed by the speaker with these words:
THE UNION JACK
MOST Worshipful Grand Master, Mr. Chairman, my Brethren, Ladies and Gentlemen: As Masons we have often been taught that Masonry is the science of symbols. Flags are either intensely symbolical or they have no significance at all. It is natural therefore that Masons should take a keen interest in flags.
This is the flag that is best known as the "Union Jack." It is called this because it symbolizes the Union of England, Scotland and Ireland. As you will see, it consists of a blue field across which there are laid three crosses, a red one running straight across and up and down, and a white one and a red one which run crossways from corner to corner. These are the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick, St. George being the patron saint of England, St. Andrew the tutelary saint of Scotland, and St. Patrick the well beloved saint of Ireland.
The banner of St. George was a red cross laid perpendicularly across a white field. We can all recall the famous legend of St. George and the dragon, how the beautiful daughter of the King of On was rescued from the flaming jaws of the dragon who threatened to devour her. Today in France the sons of St. George are freely offering up their lives to rescue God's beautiful daughter Liberty from the all-devouring jaws of the dragon of militarism.
The banner of St. Andrew consisted of a white cross laid diagonally upon a blue field. It has a special meaning for Masons, for in the early days it was the banner of the craftsmen and King James the Sixth was heard to say, that whenever he attempted to impose upon these sturdy workmen the smallest burden, they arose in their wrath and hoisted "their bloody blue blanket" and resisted him. This banner had painted upon it a thistle and round about it the motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit." This, my brethren, is a latin phrase which being interpreted meaneth, "Nobody monkeys with me without getting stung," and the sons of Scotland fighting today Somewhere In France are proving to the enemy how sharply this thistle can sting.
The banner of St. Patrick consisted of a red cross stretched diagonally across a white field. We are told that St. Patrick was especially beloved because he drove the snakes out of Ireland. I sometimes suspect, however, that their real reason for leaving was that they could hardly stomach the music by the Kilkenny cats of whom the poet tells us,
"There were two cats of Kilkenny,
They fought and they fit,
They scratched and they bit,
Until instead of two cabs of Kilkenny
There wasn't any."
Be this as it may, it is nevertheless sure that the sons of the old sod are today proving to the Prussians that the Kilkenny cats could take lessons from their Irish masters when it comes to fighting.
Taken all together, the three crosses go to make up the Union Jack, the banner of our ancient enemy, John Bull. You know that in the old days we were forced to teach him a couple of lessons in human liberty, forced to make him understand that we would neither endure taxation without representation, nor permit him to impress free-born American seamen upon the high seas, and to make him learn this lesson we had to larrup him twice, once by land and once by sea. But that was a long time ago and for over a hundred years now he has been our good neighbor on the North and we have lived side by side with him for over a century with never a soldier or a fort needed to maintain peace between us.
This is the flag of the land which gave Masonry her birth. It is the banner of the country which produced the greatest system of human law known to man --at once the wisest and fairest, the safest and squarest system of free self control that has ever blessed a troubled world. This is the national emblem of the people who speak our mother tongue and for that reason we can know and understand them a little bit better than any other people on the earth.
We used to think and feel that while England loved liberty for herself she was not quite so ready to grant it to others. But we have seen her heart undergo a wonderful change--have seen the soul of the great Britain people rise and shake off its selfishness and offer itself as a sacrifice for the suffering and the oppressed of the world. If Britain was ever beset with the greed of conquest she surely has shriven her soul by the great sacrifice made by her sons in behalf of poor, broken, bleeding Belgium and we are now ready to believe that with her whole heart and soul she loves liberty for her own sweet sake, and that when she proudly declares that "Britons never, never, never will be slaves" she means that slavery shall exist nowhere in the world and so we are glad to welcome here today the proud banner of Britain, fold it to our hearts, and wave it aloft alongside the Stars and Stripes.
THE TRI-COLOR
(Then the National flag of France was borne to the stage and the quartet sang the Marsellaise and the speaker welcomed it by saying:)
This, my brethren, is the tri-color, the tried colors of the sunny land of France. It is the flag of our sister Republic, the standard of a great, cheery, laughing, sunny-souled and happy-hearted people, and if there is a flag on the face of the earth to which the American soul is irresistibly drawn with a tingling thrill, it is this beautiful banner of France. How well our own song of the Red, White and Blue would fit this fine flag. Let us give three cheers for this Red, White and Blue !
(Whereupon the great audience arose to their feet and roared out a cheer that seemed to rock the building on its foundations.)
This is the banner that has proved to the world that a people can be free and still not lose its power of fighting. Just think of the magnificent resistance that this free people has made against the most powerful, most magnificently organized and perfectly operating Or as it fighting machine the world has ever seen.
Under the leadership of old Papa Joffre, the General Grant of France, they have fought this military machine to a stand-still and are making its wheels grind backward. At last, my brethren, we have an opportunity of paying the debt we have so long owed to Rochambeau and Lafayette and we were sodden ingrates indeed did we not respond to the call of our ancient friends who have so freely poured out floods of their patriotic blood upon the sacred altar of liberty. Verily, it takes a free people to know the heart of a free people, and if there is a land in the world to which our hearts go out in its hour of trial, it is this dearly beloved land of France, the land that was so true and helpful to us in our own hour of crying need.
The other day in addressing the Chamber of Deputies, Monsieur Ribot, the President of the Council, speaking of us to his people, said that by taking part in this war for human liberty we had proven ourselves faithful to the traditions of the founders of our independence and had demonstrated that the enormous rise of our industrial strength and economic and financial power had not weakened in us that need for an ideal without which there could be no great nation. He further declared that the powerful and decisive aid which the United States had thus brought to France was not only a material aid but was more than all else a moral aid and a real consolation in their hour of heavy affliction. Let us here highly resolve that we will prove ourselves true to the faith our French brothers have in us.
OLD GLORY
(Then the Stars and Stripes were carried to the stage, the audience standing upon their feet and singing the "Star Spangled Banner." When the flag was placed in the hands of the speaker, he said:)
This is Old Glory, my flag and your flag. If there ever was a flag about which an American ought to be able to speak freely, fluently, and with great force, it surely is the Stars and Stripes. But alas, on this occasion I feel as though human speech were far too frail, poor and weak a thing to tell of the thoughts that fill the mind and the feelings that thrill the soul. This is one of the times when words seem absolutely worthless. This is the flag which the poet spoke of when he sang:
"When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land."
Unequal as I am to the occasion I yet must try to tell what this banner means for us as
"Blue and crimson and white it shines
Over the steel-tipped ordered lines "
Or as it
"Catches the gleam of the morning's first beam
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream"
even if I call to my help the words of others to tell the story. This is the flag that speaks to us of
"Sea fights and land fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the state,
Weary marches and sinking ships,
Cheers of victory from dying lips.
Days of plenty and days of peace,
March of strong lands swift increase,
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverend awe.
Sign of a nation great and strong,
To guard her people from foreign wrong,
Glory, pride and honor all
Live in the flag to stand or fall."
Even though I had the skill of the sculptor that fits him to carve the cold rock into a living semblance of life, or the inspiration of a painter who dips his brush in the colors of the sunset to make the glowing landscape quiver with life upon the canvas before him, or the exaltation of the singer who caught the high note of the music of the spheres when the morning stars sang together,--even then I could not begin to picture the power, the glory, the majesty, the dignity, and the sanctity of the love of the free patriot for his flag.
"I am unworthy.
Master hands
Should strike the chords
And fill the lands
From sea to sea with melody
All reverent yet with harmony,
Majestic, jubilant to tell,
How love must love
If love loves well."
Think of the sacred love of a mother for her little child--of the cradle
"Gently rocking, rocking,
Silent, peaceful, to and fro,
Of the mother's sweet looks dropping
On the little face below,"
think of the love of a fine strong man as he clasps to his breast his blushing bride, think of the sacred affection linking together the lives of an old couple who have journeyed far along life's road side by side into the sunset, think of the love and the pride and the joy that flames back and forth between a staunch and sturdy son and his silver-hail ed sire--think of all these and roll and blend them into one and you cannot begin to tell of the love of the freeman for his flag! Surely then we are ready to say:
"This is my flag. For it will give
All that I have, even as they gave--
They who dyed those blood-red bands--
Their lives that it might wave.
This is my flag. I am prepared
To answer now its first clear call,
And with Thy help, Oh God,
Strive that it may not fall.
This is my flag. Dark days seem near.
O Lord, let me not fail.
Always my flag has led the right,
O Lord, let it not fail."
Some of us can fight, others can work, others still can pay, each in his place can do his duty and be worthy of the honor of being an American citizen and enjoying the blessings of liberty. Each one of us can do his bit and remember that
"Honor and fame from no condition rise,
Act well thy part, there all the honor lies."
The poorest citizen in the land can buy at least one Liberty Bond, and every dollar spent for a Liberty Bond is a bullet blown into the bowels of the enemy. Let us here today in overwhelming gratitude for the blessings that we have enjoyed under this banner of the free, consecrate our souls anew to its service.
THE MISSING FLAG
But there is another banner which is not here with us today, a flag which for the present at least we are forced to shut out of our sacred circle. I speak of it with pain and regret, with heart-ache and with a great sense of deep pity, for it is the flag of my ancestors and my own father's ashes now lie buried beneath the soil over which it waves. It is needless to say that I speak of the German flag. This flag once flew over the heads of a great people, a people that stood high in the ranks of world achievement, a people who were masters of the world, both in medicine and in music, a people who love liberty, a people who produced Martin Luther, who was the foremost champion of religious liberty in the world.
There is one curious thing about the colors of these flags which I am not sure that you have noticed. Is it by mere chance that it happens that the colors of all of the flags of freedom are red, white and blue, while those of the banner of Prussian despotism are red, white and black? Was it a matter of mere accident that this dark streak and sinister stripe appears in this flag which now stands for the outlaw among the nations ? Is not this dark stripe symbolical of the darkness of the mind, the military madness that holds a great people in bonds and is fast driving it on to ruin? Surely. the black must be a symbol of the madness of militarism.
When a storm gathers in the heavens black clouds ;hut out from sight the face of the sun. But when the age and madness of the elements has worn itself out and the roll of the thunder has died away in the distance, then slowly but surely the blackness fades to blue and the earth is bright and happy once more. Let us hope that so it will be in this awful world war and that, when the storm of rage and madness has been swept from out the hearts of our German brethren, that the blackness which now blinds their sight will clear away, and be supplanted by the pure blue of the unclouded sky of freedom and that peace and happiness will once more prevail among all the peoples of the earth.
THE FLAG OF FRATERNITY
But there is another banner here today, although we cannot see it with our mortal eyes. It is the unseen flag of Fraternity that floats above the dome of that great "house not made with hands," that temple of liberty which stands forever eternal in the heavens. Its colors are all the colors of the rainbow and it spreads its flaming folds across the world from sunrise to sunset. It is a flag that shall fall upon the world as a reward for the awful sacrifice it is now being called upon to make. In all of the history of this old earth never has there been a sacrifice so awful, so bitter, so heart-rending, so soul-terrifying, so overwhelming, as that which we are making today for the sake of human liberty, and just so surely as we believe that there is a God of Justice, just so certain must be the reward that will bless humanity for this mighty manifestation of divine devotion to a most holy cause. Out of it all there must come a world-wide unity and friendship, and a fraternity that shall reach wide-swept to the uttermost corners of the globe. There must be a union of the states, not of Europe alone, but of the whole world, and Masonry which has been never the destroyer but always the builder, must play a mighty part in erecting this world-wide temple of humanity. Even now Masons everywhere are praying for the dawn of that day so beautifully pictured by Albert Pike:
"When all mankind shall be one great lodge of brethren, And wars of fear and persecution shall be known no more forever."
When that day comes we shall behold with our spiritual eyes the mighty Temple of Human Liberty made more magnificent than ever, and over its shining portal we shall read in letters of living light the words, "Liberty and union, freedom and fraternity, now and forever, one and inseparable, world without end."
R.W. Bro. Louis Block, P.G.M.
Grand Lodge of Iowa A.F.&A.M.