Senior Judge William H. Stafford, Jr., 33°, Grand Cross
United States Courthouse
111 North Adams Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32301-7717

Terrorism anywhere threatens freedom everywhere.

My wife, a plainspoken schoolteacher, recalls one occasion when I received an overly generous introduction. It included a reference to me as "one of the few truly great Americans." When we were alone in the car going home, I asked her just how many truly great Americans she thought there were. Her reply was: "I can't give you an exact count, but there's one less than you think!"

The truly great Americans are those brave men and women of our Armed Forces who have brought honor to themselves and to our nation while bringing freedom to an oppressed people. Many of us have served because we were drafted, or enlisted because we knew we were about to be drafted. But these modern-day heroes are all volunteers-they serve because they love their country and know that terrorism anywhere threatens freedom everywhere.

Over the years as I became active in Freemasonry, I began to realize just how important our own work as Masons, like that of our Armed Forces, really is. The great lessons of Masonry need to be proclaimed and practiced, but we sometimes have spent too much of our time out of the public gaze, conferring Degrees and titles, but doing little else. As a result, our ancient Order has let its eternal message remain too much in-house. The world has moved on around us, and we continue to lose membership.

Yet there is hope, and that hope, like the mythical phoenix, can rise from the fire and destruction visited upon us on September 11, 2001. Many of us remember that quiet Sunday in December 1941 when our land was first attacked without warning and our lives of isolation were turned upside down. We who were then schoolboys admire the "Greatest Generation" for saving America and the rest of the world.

Nearly 60 years later, as we watched in horror the carnage wrought by evil men, we were once again shaken out of our complacent attitude of invulnerability. The terrorist acts in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, unleashed a reservoir of patriotism never before seen. We saw the courage of a free people rise up to care for each other, help the dead and dying and their loved ones, and resolve to bring justice upon those who would commit such acts of terror.

It was as if we were just looking for a national purpose, a cause we would rally around, a noble purpose we could achieve. No one seemed to have articulated it before, but much of what I've heard our leaders and just plain folks talking about the past two years was what we in Masonry have been teaching for centuries: a belief in God (whatever we may call the Deity); that all men are our brothers and are entitled to our respect; that while we should be tolerant of our brother's shortcomings, we should make no accommodation with evil or with those who commit evil deeds; that all honest work, no matter how menial, is honorable; that charity is a personal and public virtue.

Masonry truly does have a message for America and the world, and that message is Freemasonry's consistent, uncompromising adherence to age-old precepts which have as much application today as they did thousands of years ago. Our young people have been looking for a standard of personal and civic living, as their courageous actions since 9/11 have demonstrated and as their extraordinary success in the Iraqi Freedom campaign has made abundantly clear.

When I was young, there were many men in my town whom I admired, including my father, brother, and brothers-in-law. Many of them wore a lapel pin or a ring with a "G," surrounded by what I soon learned was a Square and Compasses. Later, I became aware that these good men in my community were Masons, but I also learned that Presidents, beginning with George Washington, Supreme Court Justices, military heroes, and other brave men, were also Masons. I wanted to belong to such an organization. What I came to realize is that while our Fraternity proudly holds these public figures up as examples of the importance of Masonry, the good, hard-working men I knew at home were no less Masons.

Even more, I learned that what Masonry teaches only reinforces the good lessons I learned at home, school, church, and in the Navy. The duties I owe to God, country, family, fellowman, and profession are consistent with all I've learned in Masonry. That's why I suggest that at this time in the history of our republic, Masonry has an opportunity to reassert itself as a moral force in America and in the world. Our principles are sound, our message is clear, and the need is great. But, we must go to work and get our message out; nothing succeeds so effectively as inaction. In the words of Edmund Burke, the 18th-century British historian, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil in the world is that good men do nothing." If we don't meet this challenge, if we do not seize this opportunity, it won't be because good men called Masons have done something wrong. Rather, it will be because they've done nothing at all.

What we can also tell the world is that Masonry not only provides a moral compass for our lives but it is also deeply involved in humanitarian work outside its own Fraternity. Scottish Rite Masons across this land have taken on language disorders as their cause. We chose this long-neglected need because language disorders strike more children than all other childhood problems combined, but, regrettably, they are often unnoticed until it is too late to help the child. The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry now has 208 clinics, centers, or programs (166 in the Southern Jurisdiction and 42 in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction) up and operating, with many more planned. Our commitment to fund these clinics for children of every religion, race, and creed is true Freemasonry in action.

Masons, no matter how famous or how unknown, are just good men bound together by their Masonic obligations. Their overall obligation is not only to be good but also to do good. In one of the lectures in the 32nd Degree, the Preceptor challenges the Candidate with these words: "My brother, no doctrine, or faith, or knowledge is of value to a man except as it bears fruit in action."

If we truly believe the obligations we assumed in the Masonic Lodge, then we have to put those promises into deeds. Our young people have shown that they understand what duty means, and they are looking for ways to put that duty into action.

I am proud that I was appointed by the last Masonic President, Ill. Gerald R. Ford, 33°, G.C., the 38th President of the United States, who said: "Liberty is a living flame to be fed, not dead ashes to be revered.... Though prosperity is a good thing, though compassionate charity is a good thing, though institutional reform is a good thing, a nation survives only so long as the spirit of sacrifice and self-discipline is strong within its people.... Inde-pendence has to be defended as well as declared; freedom is always worth fighting for, and liberty ultimately belongs only to those willing to fight for it."

The above essay is the article format of an address by Senior Judge Stafford to the Brethren of the Valley of New Castle, Pennsylvania, on April 25, 2003.

William H. Stafford, Jr. Has served as a Pensacola City Attorney, Florida First Circuit State Attorney, and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida. He is a member of Rotary and is active in church work, serving as an Episcopal lay minister. A member of Escambia Lodge No. 15 of Pensacola, Florida, he was Grand Orator (1979) of the Grand Lodge of Florida and has served as a Degree Master and been active in Degree work in all four Pensacola Bodies.