C. Fred Kleinknecht, 33°
Sovereign Grand Commander

The glory of America is that we have made the choice to be great and accepted the responsibility of that choice.

If you were to ask me what makes America great, I would answer, "It chooses greatness." In the early days of our nation, Americans had the rare opportunity to choose, and that opportunity, continued today, has transformed our history as a nation.

There were few choices for the British subjects of the 1600s and 1700s. If your family owned land and you were the firstborn son, you inherited the land and were expected to stay there and manage it. If you were the second son, you probably went into the military as an officer. If you were the third son, you almost certainly went into the church. A maverick son might break the pattern and set sail for Australia or the American Colonies to make his fortune. But, by and large, opportunity was determined by the chance of your order of birth, not the personal choices you made. If your family were not of the landed gentry, your fate was even more dictated by chance. If your father farmed, you farmed. Only a very few boys did not adopt their father's job. For girls, there were virtually no choices. They married, as directed, and provided children to continue the family traditions. Entering a religious order was virtually the only other alternative.

But in America, it was different. In America, there were choices. Admittedly, options were more restricted in the cities of the Colonies, but the free-spirited could flee convention and set out for the frontier. With the passing of time, more choices opened in Europe, but America still is, as it has always been, the world's land of choice.

An extensive publicly supported education system is free for the taking in America. Students who choose to do so can learn almost anything they wish, and the Scottish Rite is rightfully proud of its part in providing scholarship support to worthy students. Any capable student can be educated for virtually any profession. It is a matter of motivation and personal choice.

In America, you can choose your life's work, your place of residence, your friends and associates, and the partner with whom to share your life. In contrast, the lives of countless men and women around the world still depend more upon chance than choice. There is a price, a high price, to be paid for choice. That price is responsibility. The very fact that we can choose means we are responsible for the consequences of our choices. It is always easier to have someone choose for you. Making choices means confronting uncertainty and risking the possibility of failure. If your life is ruled by chance, you can always shift blame to others. Giving up free will is always tempting. Around the globe, dictators, accepted by their people, still rule.

Albert Pike understood this when he wrote, "It is only by unwearying patience and unremitting exertion that even the most intelligent people can be prevented from throwing away its heritage of freedom.... The eras of true freedom, brief and transitory, have been only the dreams of the world." But if freedom is a dream, that dream is American. We have chosen the harder path, and that choice has made us the great nation we are.

America chooses to be great.