Brother William
McKinley
Pillar of Masonry, War
Hero, President
Julian E. Endsley, 32°, K.C.C.H.
1299 Briarwood Drive #319, San Luis Obispo, California 93401-5967
President McKinley stood on a platform at Buffalo, New York, on September
5, 1901, and addressed a sweeping crowd of visitors at the Pan American
Exhibition. He explained the wide range of problems facing the nation,
and, as he enumerated the problems, he presented his proposals for solutions.
The next day, September 6, 1901, as he hosted a reception at the Exposition’s
Music Hall, loud shots rang out. He slumped to the floor, mortally wounded
and bleeding profusely. Eight days later, the 25th President of the United
States and a strong proponent of Freemasonry died in a Buffalo, New York,
hospital.
In earlier years, he had had a long experience of gunfire, roaring
canons, and death. He had enlisted in an Ohio Infantry unit as a private
at the beginning of the Civil War and saw his first action at Carnifex
Ferry on September 10, 1861. The following year represented what was probably
his most trying and yet most successful military service. He fought in
the South Mountain Battle on September 14, 1862, and three days later performed
truly outstanding service in the bloodiest of all Civil War battles, Antietam,
on September 17, 1862. For his performance there, he was commissioned a
Second Lieutenant.
In subsequent battles, which included Lexington, Kernstown, Opequan
Creek (aka Winchester), Fisher’s and Cedar Creek, all in 1864, he kept
up his exceptional service to the Union cause. During that time, he rose
to the rank of Captain, and on March 13, 1865, he was brevetted Major for
gallantry in battle by President Abraham Lincoln himself.
At Winchester, Virginia, while managing and overseeing protection of
an Army hospital, he was made a Mason. Impressed by the Masonic interactions
between Confederate prisoners and Union doctors in a time of war and hatred,
he strove to find an explanation. After learning the reasons, he presented
a petition to Hiram Lodge No. 21, Winchester. As a Union Army Major, he
was made a Mason in a Confederate Lodge, receiving all three Degrees in
three days, May 1, 2, and 3, 1865, with a Confederate Chaplain, J. B. T.
Reed, serving in the East the whole time.
When mustered out of service on July 26, 1865, he was acting Assistant
Adjutant General under General S. C. Carroll who commanded the veteran
reserve corps at Washington, D.C.
Resuming civilian life, he went to law school at Albany, New York,
and, after admission to the Ohio bar and a few years of law practice, he
became a U.S. Congressman from Ohio and spent the rest of his life in public
office, including service as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,
Governor of Ohio, and President of the United States. The harshest event
during his term was the Spanish-American War, which he had thought preventable
and which he did all in his power to avert. His massive public record is
extant and truly remarkable.
His Masonic record is almost equally impressive. He never forgot Masonry
and, holding the full range of York Rite Degrees, he delivered the address
at the centennial of Washington’s death. On December 14, 1899, at Mount
Vernon, Bro. McKinley addressed the Masonic observance of the centennial
saying: “The Fraternity justly claims the immortal patriot as one of its
members; and the whole human family acknowledges him as one of the greatest
benefactors.”
He regularly visited Lodges in his national travels and in Washington,
D.C. A delegation from Columbia Lodge No. 2397 visited him in the White
House and gave him a certificate of membership in that Lodge in London,
England. He attended a reception in his honor at California Commandery
No. 1 in San Francisco, on May 22, 1901.
During an Imperial Council meeting in Washington, he received the Shriners
at the White House, and, also at the White House, tendered a reception
for the Scottish Rite’s Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, on October
23, 1899. Those activities typified his regular promotion of and participation
in our honorable institution.
Anarchist Leon Czolgosz killed the man, but he could not kill his exemplary
record of humanitarian achievements and public service. Bro. McKinley’s
remains were accompanied from the White House to the Capitol by five Commanderies
of Knights Templar. He lay in state two days, and on September 19, 1901,
uniformed Knights Templar, some two thousand strong, formed one full division
of the funeral escort.
The fourteenth of this month, September 2001, marks the centennial
anniversary of the President McKinley’s death, and we can be justly grateful
and proud to refer to him as our Brother.
On September 15, 2001, William McKinley Lodge No. 431, Canton, Ohio,
will mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Brother McKinley by hosting
a reenactment of his Masonic funeral. For more information, please consult
the Grand Lodge of Ohio web site: www.freemason.com
Julian
E. Endsley
is a Past Master and Past Wise Master, both at Santa
Barbara, Calif. He directed the Chapter Degrees for 12 years, was Chairman
of the Scottish Rite’s Tri-Counties Speakers Bureau, Chairman of the Scottish
Rite Library Committee, and Co-Chairman of the Tri-Counties Bicentennial
Commission. After service in the Army Medical Corps, he studied engineering,
was president of the Engineers’ Club of Santa Barbara, and retired in 1991.
He is well known as a cast member of the play “A Rose upon the Altar” which
has attracted many new Masons and Scottish Rite members to the Fraternity.
He had the honor of raising Ill. Burl Ives as a Master Mason in 1976.