Stephen J. Trachtenberg, 33° Grand Cross
President, The George Washington University
2121 Eye Street, N.W.
Washington, DC  20052
Masonry plays a special role for young Americans today.

In his famous book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, summed up, among other things, the American inclination to form all kinds of voluntary groups aimed at civic improvement and the general betterment of society. Tocqueville was writing at a time when most Americans lived in small and self-contained communities. And he was writing, as we all know, long before the invention of the telephone, the automobile, and the airplane.

Modern technology has turned the United States into a far looser and more lonely society than the thinkers of the 19th century could envision. Even in our largest cities, it is possible for the individual American to feel very isolated. The sense of community—of mutual support and joint effort—is always in danger of simply dribbling away.

Against such a loss of the sense of mutuality stands the Masonic Fraternity. And it does so in ways that cannot be matched by other organizations. Freemasonry embodies the awareness that Americans share a profound obligation to each other and to their society.

Sometimes this sense of obligation takes the form of charitable endeavor. Sometimes it takes the form of shared thoughts, or our need to hear noble principles eloquently enumerated. And sometimes it takes the form of shared ceremony, when we are lifted beyond our most selfish and petty concerns by the symbolism of the Fraternity, derived from a history that extends back for hundreds of years. What makes the Fraternity so unusual in American life is the fact that it never surrenders its ideals. Its function is brotherhood. Its style is participation. And its goals are typically embodied in Lodges that are held together by a sense of loyalty even as they loyally form part of the larger Masonic Order. Masonry serves to heighten a whole range of American values that in turn are deeply tied to the progress of world history and the global yearning for freedom and dignity.

Masons are often associated with patriotism, and this is very important to young people today. The 20th century has not always been an easy century for the United States. Two world wars and a host of other conflicts have made it clear that democracy—the idea of individual freedom and responsibility—has not always been a notion tradition-bound societies accept. What Freemasonry  encourages is a vision of individuality without chaos and disorder. Patriotism, the Fraternity insists, can represent a union between complete selfhood and complete national dedication—precisely because a fully developed individual is also the kind of person who treasures good civic order.

For young people today, the sense of a national set of values that doesn't contradict individual striving is especially urgent and important. They have often been encouraged to regard their country and its government as oppressive forces. They are invited to join cults and conspiracies which oppose nearly everyone who isn't a participating member. In contrast to these unfortunate tendencies, Masonry values freedom while also valuing our national consensus as the world's oldest industrial democracy.

As President of a major university, The George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, D.C., I am necessarily deeply involved in the lives of young people. I watch them arrive on the GWU campus in quest not only of academic degrees but of a sense of personal completion. Those who graduate do so in two senses: they graduate from the University; they graduate into their adult lives.

What a profound resemblance there is between the progress of our young people through higher education and the progress of a Mason through the various Degrees of the Fraternity. Growth, development, striving for perfection—these are some of the important values shared by most young persons who enter college or post-collegiate education and by most members of the Masonic Fraternity. For me as an academic administrator, there is not only no contradiction with my "Masonic side" but a profound sense of continuity and similarity.

Clearly, the values Masonry celebrates are crucial to our country. Let me illustrate with a historic example. The year was 1961 when Ill. Allen E. Roberts first published his book House Undivided: The Story of Freemasonry and the Civil War. More than twenty years later, as he prepared for the second printing of his book, he added an "Author's Post Script" in which he described the historical event that first got him interested in the Civil War.

During a church service sponsored by his Lodge, a retired Baptist minister told a story about Joseph Fort Newton. Newton's father, Lee, had been made a Master Mason in a Confederate military lodge during the American Civil War. Later, Lee was captured by Federal forces and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp at Rock Island, Illinois. There he became deathly ill. The commander of the camp learned the elder Newton was a Mason, took him into his home, and nursed him back to health. When the war was over, the commander gave Newton money and a gun, then saw him safely on his way to his home in Texas. This amazing story, transacted during one of the bitterest internal struggles our world has ever seen, helps us identify some of the Masonic values that have played such an important role in American history. Where the Fraternity is concerned, hatred and resentment can play no role in a person's life. The Masonic vision rises above the sense of  being divided into hostile subgroups, all striving to undermine each other's well-being and sense of identity.

What Masonry says to Americans, in short, is that they are united by their deepest feelings about life and life's mission. Just as the commander of the camp in Illinois could see beyond the "enemy" identity of the captured Southerner, so can each and every Mason build a bridge of brotherhood to others and to society that leaves opposition far behind.

To the curious individual or someone who may hold skeptical notions about what Freemasonry is, I would, as a university president, say, two kinds of people arrive at my school: those who need to become a little more skeptical toward what they see going on in the world, and those who need to move a certain distance in the opposite direction—toward a better sense of how much human ideals can do to make human life more bearable.

I would suggest to such an inquirer that he bring his sense of skepticism to bear in analyzing what the Fraternity really does, how it really functions, and what really motivates whose who join it. And if the skeptic takes my advice, and embarks on a skeptical pilgrimage of this kind, he's very likely to emerge at the other end  with his skepticism destroyed!

A specific instance from my professional life showed me what Freemasons are doing in America. A few years ago, I found myself confronted with a problem. An undergraduate at my school had been accused of some exceedingly bad behavior that might well lead to expulsion. The evidence seemed incontrovertible. But there was something about the whole case that left me uncomfortable—something not quite right. By sheer coincidence, I found myself having a conversation with a fellow Scottish Rite member who, when he heard my story, said: "Expulsion is such a serious punishment. Ask the young man to come to my office, and let me see what I can find out."

A day or two later, my fellow Mason called me again. "The student is completely innocent," he said, "but it was a case of protecting the identity of the friend who did commit the act in question. Indeed, he wouldn't even tell me the name of that individual, even though I promised to keep it in confidence. So what we've got here is a case of loyalty. My sense about this young person is that he's going to mature into an admirable human being, who will encourage those he knows to do nothing foolish or socially disruptive. If you give him another chance, I don't think you'll be sorry."

At the time, I didn't even think of our exchange as motivated by Masonic sentiment. Today, I look at it somewhat differently. For an adult to be concerned about a young person with no Masonic connection and to play a role in helping that young person climb over a serious obstacle in life, that, it seems to me now, defines the Masonic Fraternity. As a Freemason, I'm proud. As a university President, I'm grateful!

Stephen J. Trachtenberg  is President of The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and a Professor there of Public Administration. A member of Benjamin B. French Lodge No. 15 and the Scottish Rite Bodies of Washington, D.C., he has been instrumental in expanding the Scottish Rite Scholarship Program at GWU. For his outstanding service, he was invested a K.C.C.H. in 1991, coroneted a 33° in 1993, and elected a Grand Cross in 1997.