Dr. Ivan M. Tribe, 32°
111 East High Street, McArthur, Ohio 45651–1111
itribe@urgrgcc.edu

As Majority Leader of the Senate, Ill. Bro. Lott carries on a tradition of Masonic service to America.

The annals of the United States Senate are filled with contributions made by members of the Masonic Fraternity to our nation’s history. From early days, when such noted Brethren as Oliver Ellsworth and James Monroe sat in that august body, through the nineteenth century, when such individuals as Thomas Hart Benton, Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and William Boyd Allison filled its ranks, Masons have played a prominent role. In the twentieth century, Robert LaFollette, George Norris, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, and Barry Goldwater—among other noted Masons—left their mark on the Senate.

In recent years, several Masons have continued to serve our nation well from the Senate’s halls. Among those in the 1990s have been Robert Byrd, John Glenn, Robert Dole, and the current majority leader and subject of this sketch, Brother Trent Lott, 33°, Grand Cross, of Mississippi.

Like many of America’s former statesmen, Chester Trent Lott hailed from modest circumstances. He was born in Grenada, Mississippi, on October 9, 1941. His father, Chester Paul Lott, had been a sharecropper who became a shipyard worker, while Senator Lott’s mother, Iona Watson Lott, taught school. The Lotts soon moved to the town of Pascagoula, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast. An only child, young Trent allegedly began to develop mediation skills at an early age working out strife through making compromises between his companions and even his parents. The family also manifested an early interest in politics: one grandfather served as a local justice of the peace while another was a county supervisor; one uncle became a state senator.

As a youth, Trent Lott attended elementary and high school in Pascagoula, graduating from the latter in 1959. That fall, he journeyed to Oxford to attend the University of Mississippi. Lott’s college years coincided with a period in which federal pressure led to the integration of several southern state universities. This included "Ole Miss," which had hitherto been a symbol of the segregated South. At the time, Lott served as President of the local chapter of the Sigma Nu fraternity and also of the Inter-fraternity Council. In this position he worked to keep fraternity members as such from participating in the sometimes violent protests that accompanied the integration process. Although he lost an election to be student body President, his role with the fraternity and as a head varsity cheerleader brought him prominence among "Ole Miss" students.

After obtaining a B.S. degree in Public Administration in 1963, Lott entered law school. As a graduate student, he held down two part-time positions, first as a field representative and second as law school alumni secretary. These jobs provided young Trent with a wide network of contacts that would prove politically useful when he became a candidate for public office. He completed his law degree in 1967, passed his bar exams that same year, and joined the Pascagoula law firm of Bryan and Gordon. During his law student days, Lott married Patricia Thompson of Pascagoula on December 27, 1964. They have subsequently become the parents of two children, now grown, Tyler Elizabeth and Chester Trent Lott, Jr.

After a year with the aforementioned Pascagoula law firm, Trent Lott joined the staff of Mississippi Congressman William Colmer, a conservative Democrat who had long represented the south Mississippi district that included the Gulf Coast. Colmer also held membership in Pascagoula Lodge No. 419 and the Scottish Rite Bodies in nearby Gulfport. When the veteran lawmaker announced his retirement in 1972, an opportunity opened for 31-year-old Trent Lott.

Like most Deep South residents, Trent Lott had been a lifelong Democrat. Yet the winds of change had been blowing through the region, and Lott chose to become a Republican, given the diminishing strength of conservatism within the Democratic Party. In his initial run for Congress, Trent became the beneficiary of not only an endorsement from retiring Democrat Colmer but also the strong showing of Richard Nixon in the Magnolia State. Trent Lott went on to win the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives with 55% of the vote. In his next seven races, he never won with less than 68% support from his constituents and once ran unopposed.

As a Congressman, Trent Lott amassed his strong level of local support by running an extremely efficient office and by staking out a conservative position on the issues. Still, he also possessed a capacity to demonstrate flexibility when necessity so required. For 14 years, Ill. Lott served on the House Rules Committee and learned the skills of using procedural methods to their best advantage. He also advanced to a position of House leadership by being chosen Minority Whip in December 1980. He retained this office through-out the years of the Reagan Presidency and once humorously described his job as "trying to put bullfrogs in a wheelbarrow."

During his years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Chester Trent Lott also advanced in Masonry. 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. 

On June 16, 1997, Grand Commander Kleinknecht and Thomas J. Lankford, 33°, Valley of Washington, D.C., paid a courtesy visit to the offices of Senator Trent Lott, 33°, in the United States Capitol.

 In 1988, Mississippi’s 41-year veteran senior Senator, Brother John C. Stennis, 33°, chose retirement, and Trent Lott opted to run for his seat. He soon became the beneficiary of a hotly contested Democratic primary in which the winner, Wayne Dowdy, spent much of his campaign funds in gaining the nomination. Trent also benefited from the popularity that outgoing President Reagan and GOP Presidential nominee George Bush enjoyed in the Magnolia State. Lott defeated Dowdy by a vote of 510,380 to 436, 339. In 1994, he won a second term gaining some 69% of the vote over the opposition candidate, Ken Harper. There seems to be a general consensus among Mississippi political observers that both Lott and the state’s senior GOP Senator, Thad Cochrane, can remain in office as long as they wish.

As a Senator, Trent Lott has generally voted with his party but did break with President Bush on the 1990 tax increase. However, he strongly supported the President’s stance in the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf Crisis that ultimately led to military action against Iraq. When Republicans took control of the Senate in January 1995, Lott became Majority Whip, defeating by a single vote Ill. Alan K. Simpson, 33°, Grand Cross, of Wyoming. General consensus among congressional observers credited his victory to the popularity he had with so many former colleagues in the House who had moved over to the Senate.

After less than two years as Majority Whip, Lott won the coveted post of Senate Majority leader when Ill. Robert J. Dole, 33°, G.C., of Kansas resigned this position as well as his safe Senate seat in order to devote full time to his pursuit of the Presidency. Again, the support of former House members proved decisive, and Trent bested his Magnolia State colleague Thad Cochrane. Fellow GOP Senators returned him to the leadership again in the 105th and the current 106th Congress. Unlike the waning GOP support in the House, first for Speaker Newt Gingrich that subsequently shifted first to Brother Robert Livingston (of Louisiana Lodge No. 102 in New Orleans) and then to Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Lott has consolidated his position as U.S. Senate leader and encounters little or no opposition within the ranks.

Since becoming Senate Majority Leader in June 1996, one additional Masonic honor has come to Chester Trent Lott. On October 3, 1997, he was elected to receive the Grand Cross, the highest honor the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, can bestow. Only a few modern political figures have attained this exalted rank.

Most observers credit Lott’s respect among Senators to his ability to work out tough compromises through negotiation. Former Maine Senator William Cohen, who became Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration, said of Lott, "He can make tough floor speeches, but he’s a master at dealing with different interests trying to work things out." Former Clinton advisor turned media commentator Dick Morris added "I think he’s brilliant…. He has an intuitive grasp of the political process." Nationally known columnist Fred Barnes writing in the Weekly Standard says that the junior Senator from Mississippi wants to be "an accomplishment-driven majority leader who builds on his successes." In essence, Senator Lott personifies Masonry’s "noble contention, or rather emulation of who best can work and best agree." Given the fact that Trent Lott is one of the most prominent members of our venerable Fraternity on the American scene today, one can only wish him well. All Brethren hope that Illustrious Brother Trent builds on the legacy of such prior Masonic statesmen as Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, Robert LaFollette, and Everett Dirksen to name just a few of those in whose footsteps he walks.

Ivan M. Tribe  is a Master Mason in Albany Lodge No. 723, Albany, Ohio; a Knight of the York Cross of Honor and active in the York Rite Bodies of Athens, Ohio; and a 32° Scottish Rite Mason, Valley of Cambridge, Ohio, N.M.J. He is a professor of history at the University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Ohio.