Charles Henry Jacobson, 33° (1852–1921)
Grand Secretary, Grand Lodge of Colorado

An eloquent turn-of-the century tribute to Albert Pike pictures a man of multiple talents and
great accomplishments.

Albert Pike was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 29, 1809, the son of a shoemaker whose wife believed the best legacy they could leave to their children was a good education and the influence of an honorable, upright life. When Albert was four years of age, his parents moved to Newburyport, where he attended school, going afterwards to the Academy at Framingham. At 14, he was prepared for Harvard, tested out of the first two years, and would have entered as a Junior, but Harvard insisted on being paid for the Freshman and Sophomore years even though Pike was being permitted to skip them, so the young man decided not to enter. Undaunted, he secured an education equal to that offered by Harvard by teaching school and by systematic reading, until he became one of the best-educated men of his time.

The cold austerity of his New England environment chilled and hampered his nature. His spirit yearned for a freer scope. Restraint was irksome, liberty he must and would have. In 1831, therefore, he explored the headwaters of the Brazos to the sources of the Red River and down across the plains of Texas to Arkansas, where he taught school, studied law, and wrote poetry. In 1833, he obtained employment on the Little Rock Advocate, and in two years, he owned the paper, but, being a poor collector of debts, he balanced his accounts by burning them. He next devoted himself to the law, became a court reporter and later, by appointment of Jefferson Davis, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Confederacy.

During the Mexican War, he commanded a company in Colonel Archibald Yell's famous regiment. His courage and skill at the battle of Buena Vista won for him deserved fame. After the war, the treatment of the Indians aroused Pike's indignation, and, believing they were being defrauded, he espoused their cause, which he carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the Civil War, he took sides with the South and was made a Brigadier General. He commanded the Indian regiments at the battle of Elkhorn in Arkansas [also called the Battle of Pea Ridge], but, becoming disgusted with the war, he resigned from the army and removed to Washington, where he practiced law until 1880. He had been admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1849, along with Abraham Lincoln. . . .

Clearly, Pike was a fine lawyer, a great soldier, and a most profound and scholarly writer. As a poet, the celebrated English critic Kit North said: "He is entitled to take his place in the front rank of his country's poets." He was versed in many languages including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit, old Samaritan, Chaldean, Persian, French, Spanish, and Italian. The Library of the Supreme Council, at Washington, contains his manuscript translation of the Veda and the Zend Avesta. Morals and Dogma of the Scottish Rite, as written and compiled by Albert Pike, . . . [contains] the accumulated wealth of the best and wisest of recorded thought and philosophy, and the most subtle delineation and analysis of human passions and ambitions. Read, study, and comprehend [this book] . . . to the full, and you will have mastered the riddle of the ages.

Albert Pike was made a Mason in Little Rock, Arkansas, in July 1850, exalted to the Royal Arch Degree November 29, 1850, and created a Knight Templar in February 1853. He received the Scottish Rite Degrees March 20, 1853, at Charleston, South Carolina from Albert G. Mackey, was coroneted an Honorary Thirty-third April 25, 1857, at New Orleans, and crowned an Active Member of the Supreme Council at Charleston, March 20, 1858, he was Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Jurisdiction from 1858 until his death in 1891. He was an Honorary Grand Commander of nearly every Supreme Council in the world. . . . [Yet] he preferred a quiet room where he could smoke his pipe, meet and greet old friends, and form new acquaintances. His mind was a vast storehouse of wealth from which he could draw at will anecdote, story, philosophy, reminiscences of travel, of history, and of men prominent in art, literature, and statesmanship. One went from his presence with broader and truer ideas of life and life's duties. . . .

Perhaps his greatest power and charm lay in the deep warmth and tenderness of his heart, in his strong and gentle sympathy for human suffering, in his admiration for the good, the true, and the beautiful, in his passionate hatred of all wrong and injustice. He was proud, but only of his integrity and honor. All forms of evil and oppression he hated; jealousy and fear he knew not; he made enemies but only of the cruel and intolerant; his friends, who were legion, were loyal; they trusted in him and gave him without stint their love, respect, and confidence.

Albert Pike belongs to no one age, people, or country. A citizen of the world, he labored incessantly for the uplift of men everywhere. . . . From him radiated hope, and trust, and the sure conviction that out of all the pain and loss and vicissitudes of life, the right would eventually win and goodness reign. Strong men have ruled the destinies of nations and have died and been forgotten or remembered only through the misery they wrought, the people they conquered, or the ambitions they gratified. Albert Pike built on a surer foundation for a nobler purpose. He sought ever to mitigate the sorrows of men, to lighten their burdens. He labored not to subjugate but to elevate the people. His ambition was not for place or power or personal aggrandizement, but for the consummation of a universal human brotherhood, a society founded on mutual esteem and respect, a society upon whose statute books would be found but one law—the law of love. . . .

On April 2, 1891, full of years and honor, in the beautiful temple he had designed and built and adorned and in which he lived with his flowers and books and singing birds, where he had thought and written his matchless words, where he had labored to make men freer, better, happier, more worthy of God's grace and mercy, he died. . . . Anticipating that a monument would be erected to his memory, he said: "When I am dead I wish my monument to be builded only in the hearts and memories of my brethren of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and my name to be remembered by them in every country, no matter what language men speak there, where the light of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite shall shine, and its oracles of truth and wisdom be reverently listened to."

In October, 1901, there was unveiled and dedicated to his memory a magnificent monument in Washington, D.C., on the face of which appears simply the name Albert Pike. But Albert Pike had built for himself a more enduring monument, one that neither time nor the elements can efface or destroy. Wherever the flag of Freemasonry floats, wherever bigotry and superstition have given place to tolerance and enlightenment; wherever clerical domination has yielded to free conscience; wherever free thought, free speech, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have gained a foothold—there upon the hearts of men will be found indelibly graven the monument to Albert Pike, more enduring than bronze, as imperishable as eternity.

The above article, taken from the Internet, was printed in a memorial publication, titled Gavel Strokes, of great lectures given by Illustrious Brother Jacobson. This particular lecture was delivered before a Scottish Rite audience to raise funds for Masonic support of education. The original text of nearly 3,000 words has been edited and shortened for presentation in the Journal.