"He has lived. The fruits of his labors live
after him." –Albert Pike, 33°
These words dedicated to Albert Pike are mounted
in bronze near the impressive, leather-covered doors leading into the
Library of the Supreme Council, 33°. They are an appropriate greeting
to the user of the library since today
the Supreme Council's library continues Pike's lifework and
Freemasonry's mission. Pike, who admitted to being "capricious
in my reading," was an avid collector of books. In his Little
Rock, Arkansas, home one of the most
impressive rooms was the library, and Pike kept an extensive
collection
of books at his Arkansas mountain cabin retreat
where he wrote the first drafts of what
was to become Morals and Dogma. Pike saved what
he could of these
books during the turmoil of the Civil War
and its aftermath, and when he moved to the
nation's capital area, he built on these collections, first
in his home in Alexandria, Virginia, and then in the first
House of the Temple at Third and D Streets,
NW, in Washington, D.C. Upon his death, he willed all his
books
to the
Supreme Council, 33°,
under the provision that they be made available to the general
public for consultation for reading at no charge. Thus in
1891, the House of the Temple Library
became, in effect, the first "public library"
in the District of Columbia. Today, many
of these books from Pike's personal collection form the nucleus
of the Library of the Supreme Council at the present
House of the Temple at 1733 Sixteenth Street, NW, and they are still available for use,
free of any charge, by the general public as well as, of course, the Brethren.
Joan K. Sansbury
Librarian of the Supreme Council
