Albert Pike's Masonic Statue To Be Reinstalled in Washington D.C.

by Christopher Hodapp

The National Parks Service has announced it will restore and re-install the iconic bronze statue of Scottish Rite sage Albert Pike on its former plinth in Washington, DC's Judiciary Square. On June 19, 2020, the statue was toppled by rioters, covered in paint, doused with lighter fluid, and ignited, a victim of the national Confederate-related statue-toppling mania that went on in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

According to a press release from the NPS issued yesterday,

Micro-abrasive cleaning of the Albert Pike statue to remove corrosion 

and paint in order to review the conditions of the bronze prior to repairs 

NPS photo

The restoration aligns with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and re-instate pre-existing statues.

Originally authorized by Congress in 1898 and dedicated in 1901, the statue honors Pike’s leadership in Freemasonry, including his 32 years as Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient Rite of Scottish Freemasonry. The statue has been in secure storage since its removal and is currently undergoing restoration by the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center.

This action supports both the Executive Order on Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful and the Executive Order on Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which direct federal agencies to protect public monuments and present a full and accurate picture of the American past.

Site preparation to repair the statue’s damaged masonry plinth will begin shortly, with crews repairing broken stone, mortar joints, and mounting elements. The NPS is targeting October 2025 for completing the reinstallment of the fully restored statue.

Upon the announcement, Washington D.C.'s longtime non-voting delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, announced her intention to introduce a new bill in Congress to prevent its reinstallation and to, instead, donate it to a museum, saying, "a statue honoring a racist and a traitor has no place on the streets of D.C."

Before its toppling, detractors had long objected to the statue on the grounds that Pike had owned several slaves when he lived in Arkansas, and served for just five months in the Confederate Army as a Brigadier General before resigning in disgust, making it the only statue of a "former Confederate soldier" in the District. There has also been a longstanding, unsubstantiated allegation that Pike had been a founder of the post-war Ku Klux Klan, claiming he had written their original rituals. And, oof course, there's a whole raft of conspiracy theories about Pike, topped by the absurd notion that he was a Luciferian whose rituals turned Freemasonry into Satanic ceremonies.

Pike was a complex, intellectual and deeply profound man in his day, and attempting to portray him as a "racist and a traitor" ignores just how complex he really was, reducing his lifetime to just two misleading adjectives. And wrapping up such a superficial judgement with lies and conspiracy theories is a deliberate attempt to rewrite history to win likes and clicks.

(See Scottish Rite SJ Grand Archivist Arturo DeHoyos' statement from 2020 about Pike's real writings and activities HERE.)

Pike's statue had first been erected by the Scottish Rite SJ across from the location of their original 'House of the Temple' headquarters. For thirty years, protesters and the press characterized Pike's sculpture as a "Confederate monument," despite the fact that it was never anything of the kind. His statue was not erected by pro-Confederate veterans groups, or by alleged Ku Klux Klan members (it predated the 1920s resurgence of the KKK by many years). The statue was originally erected on a tiny sliver of land between two diverging diagonal streets. The streets and the statue were moved slightly when a new highway on-ramp was built there in the 1950s. The 11-foot tall bronze sculpture by Italian artist Gaetano Trentanove was erected in 1901 and donated to the city by the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction to commemorate their own 100th anniversary. 

Out of their first 90 years, Albert Pike had served as the AASR-SJ's Sovereign Grand Commander for 32 of them—over a third of the Supreme Council's entire lifespan at that time. The original House of the Temple held their headquarters, their auditorium for putting on degrees, their vast and growing library, and Albert Pike lived and died there. So did his TWO successors. That made this particular corner historically significant.

The sculpture did NOT depict Pike as a Confederate soldier, nor did it commemorate or celebrate the five months in which he served as a general in the Confederate army. It was a Masonic representation of Pike's lifetime accomplishments as an author, philosopher, orator, lawyer, historian, polyglot, and a soldier (not only in his brief stint in the Confederate army, but also in the Mexican-American War). He wasn't atop a horse; he had no sword dangling from his belt; there was no declaration of heroship, and no phony bromide about 'healing a divided nation' that are the hallmarks of Civil War statues. Pike stood there with a book in his hand and the inscription Vixit Laborum Ejus Super Stites Sunt Fructus. "He has lived. The fruits of his labors live after him." Yet few - if any - who tore it down had any interest in actually looking up what the fruits of his labors really were.

There were no references to the Confederacy, only that Pike had been a "soldier" and the banner in the hand of the Grecian figure is not a Confederate flag or symbol, but a Scottish Rite one featuring the double-headed eagle. It was purely a Masonic statue and an homage to his life's many accomplishments. Nevertheless, it was felled by the mob and hauled away to an unspecified location by the District's Parks Department.

This morning, an NPR reporter sent me an email asking for a comment about the statue's restoration. Unfortunately, I returned her call too late for her deadline. The last thing any Freemason wants is for this whole controversy to bubble up again and used to fling mud on the fraternity. I've never been of the opinion that Pike needed to be beatified by Masons, and he didn't either, if his own writings were any indication. He once wrote: “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 may 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.”

Besides, Washington Masonic sites get enough vandalism from the lunatic crowd without giving them another one. But I despise it when the hysterics go out of their way to spread lies about the fraternity, especially when the truth is easily discovered.

For more than you'll ever want to know about Pike and the statue, see Albert Pike, Statues, History and Hysteria from back in 2017. In the 1980s and 90s, it became something of a crusade for perennial presidential candidate and famed nutcase Lyndon LaRouche to demand its removal.

Every time this particular subject arises, I always add the same post script. In February 1993, the Philalethes magazine published a piece about the Pike statue controversy that was raging back then. It was written by the Reverend Howard L. Woods, a Christian minister who served for ten years as the Grand Master of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Arkansas F&AM. In 1991, he had been invited as the Lecturer for the Philalethes Society, the first Prince Hall Mason ever asked to do so, and still many years before Prince Hall recognition became widespread. GM Woods wrote before more recent scholarship has brought to light more of Pike's writings and verification that Pike did indeed provide his revised Scottish Rite rituals to help the Prince Hall aligned Scottish Rite.*(see note)

The Reverend Grand Master Woods' perspective in 1993 deserves to be repeated now, both for our own members and the general public. It still rings true 32 years later.

The Albert Pike Statue: Let It Stand

There is no love lost between Prince Hall Masons and the memory of the late Albert Pike, Masonic Historian, writer, alleged ritualist for the Ku Klux Klan, but, if Freemasonry is to remain the bulwark of free-thinking people, then, "Let the statue remain!"

Like the natures he wrote about, Albert Pike showed the light and dark sides of his own soul, when with one breath he spoke of his willingness to give up his Freemasonry rather than recognize the Negro as a 'Masonic Brother' and with another breath, declared that every man should be free, for a free man is an asset, while a slave is a liability. Mankind is that way, and as long as the statue stands, America and Freemasonry will survive.

Let the statue be torn down and America and Freemasonry will be in jeopardy, for one would have to wonder, "What would be next?" As a Prince Hall Mason, an African American and supposedly free-thinker, I can see a higher power than the mortal mind of Albert Pike guiding his pen as he wrote such beautiful words of life without an occasional helping hand from someone "bigger than you or I."

Let the statue stand, even if it is proven that Albert Pike did write ritual for the Ku Klux Klan; more ignoble deeds have been done by others without sacrifice of their historic heroism.

Let the statue stand as a reminder that the good and evil of men are in equilibrium within us, and we all should strive for perfection now and in the future, not in the past. Let the statue stand!

 --Rev. Howard L. Woods, Grand Master, Prince Hall Masons of Arkansas.

*NOTE: Between 1887 and 1891, Albert Pike happily shared personal, autographed copies of his Scottish Rite Masonic degree rituals with his counterpart, Thornton A. Jackson, in the parallel Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction for black Prince Hall Masons, in order to assist their fledgling organization. Pike's correspondence has not survived, but in writings of the period, Jackson described Pike as his friend. Later comparisons of their two sets of rituals confirmed that the Prince Hall AASR-SJ today remain very close to those Pike wrote in the years before 1887.

Post-riot photos by Brother Efrian Olujimi Dalle

Congresswoman Introduces Bill To Remove Pike Statue in D.C.

Washington DC's non-voting delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, introduced a bill in Congress Tuesday officially calling for the removal of a statue of the Scottish Rite's sage Albert Pike from Judicial Square in Washington, D.C. The 11-foot tall bronze sculpture by Italian artist Gaetano Trentanove was erected in 1901 and donated to the city by the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction to commemorate their 100th anniversary. 

The original 'House of the Temple' was actually a series of three connected brownstones diagonally across the street from the statues' present location, which is why Pike is placed there today. In 1901 it stood on a tiny triangular sliver of land next to 433 Third Street NW, at the intersection of Third and D Streets. Because the Federal District is owned and operated by the Congress, it required an act of Congress to place the statue there 118 years ago. It now requires another such act to move or remove it.

Original House of the Temple at 433 Third Street NW in Judiciary Square.
Now demolished.

Out of their first 90 years, Albert Pike had served as the AASR-SJ's Sovereign Grand Commander for 32 of them—over a third of the Supreme Council's entire lifespan at that time. The original House of the Temple held their headquarters, their auditorium for putting on degrees, their vast and growing library, and Albert Pike lived and died there. So did his TWO successors. That makes this particular corner historically significant.

As the National Parks Service describes it, Pike is portrayed: 

“...in civilian dress and presented as a Masonic leader rather than a military man. Pike stands 11 feet tall upon a high granite pedestal. Below his feet about halfway down the west face of the pedestal, sitting on a ledge, is the allegorical Goddess of Masonry, holding the banner of the Scottish Rite. The figure is in Greek dress and posed as looking down. Pike holds a book in his left hand, perhaps his popular Morals and Dogma of Scottish Rite Masonry.”

There are eight inscriptions around the corners of its granite base: Author, Poet, Scholar, Soldier, Philanthropist, Philosopher, Jurist, and Orator. On the front is a Latin phrase, Vixit Laborum Ejus Super Stites Sunt Fructus. ("He has lived. The fruits of his labors live after him.") Despite the fact that detractors object to it on the grounds that Pike had served very briefly in the Confederate Army, making it the only statue of a former Confederate soldier in the District, the sculpture does not depict him as a Confederate soldier. There are no references to the Confederacy, and the banner in the hand of the Grecian figure is not a Confederate flag or symbol, but a Scottish Rite one featuring the double-headed eagle. It is purely a Masonic statue.

This current campaign by Norton to remove it dates back to August 2016 at the height of a national call to hide, move or destroy countless Confederate statues commemorating the Civil War. Nevertheless, Norton's bill is only the latest attempt to have Pike scraped off of this historic corner. The statue has been controversial for the last 30 years or more. Fringe politician Lyndon Larouche made an unsuccessful but noisy, high visibility attempt in the 1990s, and it is a frequent target of vandalism.

In 2016, D.C. radio station WTOP reporter Amanda Iacone interviewed Art de Hoyos for a follow up story:

“I think that people have misunderstood the intent of that statue,” said Arturo de Hoyos, grand archivist for the Scottish Rite in D.C.

The Scottish Rite is the largest branch of Freemasonry in the world. And the regional headquarters for the southern half of the United States is based on 16th Street at the House of the Temple, where Pike is interred.

His statue, erected at the dawn of the 20th Century by the Scottish Rite, celebrates his contributions to Freemasonry and his life as a civilian after the war, de Hoyos said.

Still, the organization will support whatever decision is made regarding the statue’s future, he said.

“We certainly don’t want a monument, which was really placed there to honor the fraternity, to be a divisive point within the community on racial matters,” de Hoyos said.

De Hoyos described Pike as a “man of his times,” who was known to abandon ideas and views over the course of his life. That included his views on slavery and he later developed a friendship with a leader of Prince Hall, a black Freemason society.

“Before and during the Civil War, he accepted slavery as a social institution …. He was a person who actually looked forward to a time when slaves would be free men,” de Hoyos said.

Norton’s full statement on the removal of the statue is included below:

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton

Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes NortonOn the Introduction of a Bill to Remove the Statue of Confederate General Albert Pike

July 30, 2019
Madam Speaker.

I rise to introduce a bill to require the removal of a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike from federal land near Judiciary Square in the District of Columbia. This statue was authorized, not by the District, but by Congress in 1898, when the District had no home rule. The statue was constructed using both federal and private funds. The Freemasons, of which Pike was a member, donated the majority of the money needed to build and install the statue in 1901. I oppose tearing down Confederate statues, because I believe they should be moved to more appropriate settings, like museums, to avoid erasing an important part of history from which Americans must continue to learn.

Pike was a Confederate general who served dishonorably and was forced to resign in disgrace. It was found that soldiers under his command mutilated the bodies of Union soldiers, and Pike was ultimately imprisoned after his fellow officers reported that he misappropriated funds. Adding to the dishonor of taking up arms against the United States, Pike dishonored even his Confederate military service. He certainly has no claim to be memorialized in the nation’s capital. Even those who do not want Confederate statues removed will have to justify awarding Pike any honor, considering his history.
After meeting with the Freemasons, I believe that the best course of action is to remove the statue and find a more appropriate place for it. The Freemasons themselves support the statue’s removal, given its divisive nature. The D.C. Mayor and the Council also support the removal of the statue.

My bill clarifies that no federal funds may be used to remove the Pike statue. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

There is much misinformation in her statement, and I discussed the statue, its history, and Pike's past in a much longer article in 2016. See Albert Pike, Statues, History and Hysteria. At the time I wrote that long, long diatribe, the country was enmeshed in statue removal fever, and locally we had just had a spate of bored teenagers vandalizing area statues using the excuse of political "offense" to justify getting drunk and breaking things. A deliberately provocative newspaper "reporter" had even published a helpful list of 'Indianapolis Statues You Might Find Offensive' so they could be more easily targeted for destruction.

The sad truth is that almost no one in America outside of perhaps 1/3 of current US Freemasons - a few hundred thousand at best - know or care who Albert Pike is anymore, including the tiny handful of Masonic members in Congress. In 1901, those numbers were legion. Not anymore. If we're honest, looking out over the back parking lot of the House of the Temple is probably where Pike's statue really belongs today. Although I can convincingly argue its current location is useful to mark the historic location of the former HOT and where he actually lived, worked, and died.

Or as an old indecisive ad executive I used to know frequently waffled, "I feel strongly both ways..."
H/T Mark Tabbert

Washington Battle Over Pike Statue Part XXXIII...

The saga of Washington DC's Albert Pike statue continues apace. As reported last month, the District's non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton, introduced a bill in Congress to remove Pike's statue from Federal land. Her justification? That Pike briefly served as a general in the Confederate Army. In her statement, she made absolutely false accusations against Pike:

Pike was a Confederate general who served dishonorably and was forced to resign in disgrace. It was found that soldiers under his command mutilated the bodies of Union soldiers, and Pike was ultimately imprisoned after his fellow officers reported that he misappropriated funds. Adding to the dishonor of taking up arms against the United States, Pike dishonored even his Confederate military service. He certainly has no claim to be memorialized in the nation’s capital. Even those who do not want Confederate statues removed will have to justify awarding Pike any honor, considering his history...

Nowhere does anyone ever bother to note why the statue is standing where it is today - to mark the former location of the Scottish Rite's original House of the Temple in Judiciary Square where Albert Pike actually lived and died. Few bother to note that the statue HAD to be placed on federal land, since the District itself is all federal territory. And few rarely note that the statue does not depict Pike as a soldier, confederate or otherwise. No one ever notes that more than 750,000 Southern men served in the Confederate Army, regardless of their level of enthusiasm (or lack of it) for the Cause itself. All that matters is that Pike served for less than six months in the CSA, and must therefore be scraped from public view in the current fad of hiding the past. 

Earlier this month, reporter Claire Savage of the Washington DC's NBC affiliate forwarded Norton's statement to the Scottish Rite SJ's Arturo De Hoyos for comment, and he responded at length with a detailed refutation of the allegations against Pike and his actual military record. The subsequent news report can be read at: Confederate Statue Downtown Needs to Be Removed, Norton Says.

However.

News sources being what they are, much was omitted from Art's actual responses to Ms. Savage. The result is an incredibly misleading article that might have actually informed the public had it not been so deliberately skewed and selective in cherrypicking his sentences.

Today, Art has posted both of his replies to Ms. Savage on his Facebook pages, along with images of the original document written by Albert Pike and the military's own reference to the matter. He has made the post publicly shareable. So in the ongoing interest of laying this non-issue to sleep (which of course it will never do) I post it all below in its entirety.

---

ARTURO DE HOYOS
FACEBOOK AUGUST 26, 2019

*** Taking More Shots at Albert Pike **

Ten days ago Claire Savage of NBC4 Washington contacted me regarding the Pike statue here in DC, and forwarded Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton's anti-Pike remarks. I explained that they were neither accurate nor fair, and provided historical proof to the contrary.

Unfortunately, Claire Savage's article omits some of the strong evidence which exonerates Pike.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/…/Confederate-Statue-Downtown…

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes NortonOn the Introduction of a Bill to Remove the Statue of Confederate General Albert PikeJuly 30, 2019

Madam Speaker.

I rise to introduce a bill to require the removal of a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike from federal land near Judiciary Square in the District of Columbia. This statue was authorized, not by the District, but by Congress in 1898, when the District had no home rule. The statue was constructed using both federal and private funds. The Freemasons, of which Pike was a member, donated the majority of the money needed to build and install the statue in 1901. I oppose tearing down Confederate statues, because I believe they should be moved to more appropriate settings, like museums, to avoid erasing an important part of history from which Americans must continue to learn.

Pike was a Confederate general who served dishonorably and was forced to resign in disgrace. It was found that soldiers under his command mutilated the bodies of Union soldiers, and Pike was ultimately imprisoned after his fellow officers reported that he misappropriated funds. Adding to the dishonor of taking up arms against the United States, Pike dishonored even his Confederate military service. He certainly has no claim to be memorialized in the nation’s capital. Even those who do not want Confederate statues removed will have to justify awarding Pike any honor, considering his history.

After meeting with the Freemasons, I believe that the best course of action is to remove the statue and find a more appropriate place for it. The Freemasons themselves support the statue’s removal, given its divisive nature. The D.C. Mayor and the Council also support the removal of the statue.
My bill clarifies that no federal funds may be used to remove the Pike statue. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following below are my comments:


"Hello Claire,

I just read your email and Congresswoman Norton’s statement.

It’s important to note that Pike’s statue is not that of a Confederate, but rather of a private citizen. He’s not in uniform, nor does he carry a firearm or sword. Albert Pike was a man of his times who, like many others, served in the military and became a quiet and peaceable citizen following the war.

Unfortunately, Congresswoman Norton’s statement includes misstatements. Soldiers under Pike’s command did not mutilate the bodies of Union soldiers. Rather, at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, some of the Native American troops, under Pike’s command, dismounted and acted on their own. When Pike learned that a Union soldier had been scalped after his death he was “angry and disgusted,” and filed a report in which he said it caused him the “utmost pain and regret.” I do not recall that Pike misappropriated funds, but rather that General Van Dorn took $160,000, leaving Pike’s department quartermaster and commissary completely without funds. In response, Pike advanced the quartermaster $20,000 from his own pocket. If I recall correctly, Major General Hindman declared martial law in Arkansas, and ordered Pike to turn over weapons and Native American Indian treaty funds. Pike thought the action was illegal and refused. Hindman ordered Pike’s arrest, and he fled to Texas, where he was arrested and briefly held in jail. Pike resigned his commission, which was accepted and he was permitted to return to Arkansas.

Pike served as the head of “Scottish Rite” Masonry from 1859 to his death in 1891. During that time he devoted himself to promoting friendship and moral philosophy. After forming a friendship with Thornton A. Jackson, the head of the Scottish Rite Prince Hall Affiliation (Black/African American Freemasonry), Pike shared his own rituals and with that group, and corresponded using fraternal terms.

Certainly, we have no desire that the Pike statue (which belongs to the Parks Service), should be the cause of division or strife. Although our belief is that it has been misrepresented and misunderstood, we support whatever view the Park Service recommends, whether that means it should stay or be moved to a new location."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a follow-up email I wrote:

"I might add that Pike’s order, which expressed his “utmost pain and regret” was also reprinted in the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/…/another-chapter-regarding-indian-…

It’s noteworthy that contrary to being the uncaring criminal portrayed by Congresswoman Norton, Pike’s order actually shows that he wanted to Court-martial a Confederate soldier for the “atrocious act for barbarous and wanton cruelty” of killing a defenseless Union soldier, who was wounded on the battlefield."

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

In this handwritten statement by Albert Pike he expressed his anger
and disgust when he learned that Native Americans had
scalped a deceased Union soldier.

Albert Pike, Statues, History and Hysteria

The current hysterics over the removal of public statuary seem to be continuing unabated across the U.S., and so it was inevitable that the decades-old controversies over the 11-foot tall bronze lump of Albert Pike on a pedestal in Washington D.C.'s Judiciary Square would once again capture the hearts and fury of the area scolds. One. More. Time. After all, it's been a while, and society has the collective and institutional memory of a fruit bat these days. Seems like the 1990s when political hack, noted "Fascist demagogue," and lunatic asylum escapee Lyndon LaRouche was on everybody's lips when the last big flap over this statue erupted and faded.

In case you haven't heard of this before, Italian sculptor Gaetano Trentanove created the statue at the behest of the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction in 1901 for their Centennial year celebration. As the National Parks Service describes it, Pike is portrayed: “...in civilian dress and presented as a Masonic leader rather than a military man. Pike stands 11 feet tall upon a high granite pedestal. Below his feet about halfway down the west face of the pedestal, sitting on a ledge, is the allegorical Goddess of Masonry, holding the banner of the Scottish Rite. The figure is in Greek dress and posed as looking down. Pike holds a book in his left hand, perhaps his popular Morals and Dogma of Scottish Rite Masonry.”

It does not show him as a Confederate soldier (he was briefly a brigadier general for the CSA Army), there are zero references to the Confederacy, and the banner in the hand of the Grecian figure is not a Confederate flag or symbol, but a Scottish Rite one featuring the double-headed eagle. There are eight inscriptions around the corners of its granite base: Author, Poet, Scholar, Soldier, Philanthropist, Philosopher, Jurist, and Orator. On the front is a Latin phrase, Vixit Laborum Ejus Super Stites Sunt Fructus. ("He has lived. The fruits of his labors live after him.")

The statue was created ten years after Pike's death for the Scottish Rite's 100th anniversary. Out of its first 90 years, Albert Pike had served as Sovereign Grand Commander for (appropriately) 32 of them—over a third of the Supreme Council's entire lifespan at that time. Prior to the construction of the current House of the Temple we all know and love today, starting in 1870, the 'House of the Temple' was actually a row of three interconnected brownstone buildings located at 433 Third Street, NW (between E and D Streets, where Indiana melds into D Street today). If you don't know DC, that's the southeast corner of what is now Judiciary Square where, Lo! and Behold!, good ol' Albert Pike's statue was placed. Actually, it was in a slightly different spot that was directly south of their onetime headquarters originally. The streets in the area were reconfigured in 1975. There was originally an empty triangle-shaped sliver of land at the intersection of Third and D where it first sat, and the statue was relocated across the intersection when the roads got rejiggered for the building of I-395 and the new city Municipal Center.

The original Scottish Rite House of the Temple at 3rd and D Streets NW

(There was a big auditorium hiding in there.)

That's WHY Pike stands there now. And the Scottish Rite paid for it all (a whopping $15,000 at the time). The corner held their headquarters, their auditorium for putting on degrees, their vast and growing library, and Albert Pike lived there. And he died there. So did his TWO successors. And because DC is not an actual city per se, but a Federal district owned and legislated by the United States Congress, and since the essentially worthless land the statue was proposed for—and remains—District property, putting up a statue required an Act of Congress in 1898. It will also, therefore, require another such Act to order or even authorize its removal, if things get that far. Additionally, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 20, 1978.

Back in 1992, the LaRouchies made a brief national stink over it, proclaiming that Pike had been the "chief founder" of the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas, and their group asserted that Albert founded the Klan as a terrorist arm of the Scottish Rite in a Masonic conspiracy to keep the South in Confederate hands. The lurid nonsense wouldn't be bothersome, except that the same crank theory gets trotted out to this day in as far reaching places as a recent National Review article, and even by alleged "expert" academics (as in a recent book about Prince Hall Freemasonry by an otherwise respected French professor who once breezily waved off criticism over her 'Pike was a Kluxer' assertion by proclaiming "It is a well known fact." It's no such thing.)

Anyway, the latest mass demonstration over Pike's statue got bubbling earlier this week and was first reported on the blog site DCist HERE. It reads, in part:

The mayor, more than half of the D.C. Council, and the D.C. attorney general have joined activists in calling for the removal of a statue of a Confederate general from federal land in Judiciary Square.

"Albert Pike was a strong proponent of slavery and fought to try to preserve that in this country. Regardless of what he did in other parts of his life, it's inappropriate to honor him," says At-large Councilmember David Grosso, who sent a letter today to the acting director of the National Park Service calling for a statue of Pike at 3rd and D streets NW to be taken down.

Mayor Muriel Bowser agrees that the statue should be removed and replaced.

"Across the South, cities are removing outdoor statues of Confederate leaders. Here in the nation's capital, there is one on National Park Service land. We believe the National Park Service should remove the Pike statue and seek public input on which historical figure should replace it," said LaToya Foster, Bowser's press secretary, in an emailed statement.

Fellow At-large councilmembers Elissa Silverman, Anita Bonds, and Robert White, Ward 1's Brianne Nadeau, Ward 5's Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 6's Charles Allen, and Attorney General Karl Racine co-signed the letter sent by Grosso.

"We in the District of Columbia hold dear the values of equality, diversity, and inclusion, which are in direct conflict with the values embodied by the statue," it reads. "In a time when these values are under constant attack by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and far-right terrorists, the presence of a statue honoring Albert Pike only serves to perpetuate and incite hate, violence, and oppression."

Activists drew attention to the Pike statue this weekend in the wake of the white nationalist gathering and terrorist attack in Charlottesville. At vigils on Sunday and Monday nights, hundreds of people marched from the White House to Judiciary Square to protest its continued presence in D.C.

"[Pike] is a guy who loved slavery so much that he quit two political parties. He wrote pamphlets about it, and then when the civil war started, he raised three regiments of troops," Eugene Puryear of the Stop Police Terror Project told a crowd of protesters on Sunday. "The Richard Spencers of the world, they want to invoke fear in people, they want people to fear their fascist movement. This [vigil] is a sign that people are not going to let that genie out of that bottle, that people are going to fight back."

Grosso says that he learned about the Pike's Confederate ties through activists, because the statue doesn't have any visible reference to them. Pike was honored for his work with the Freemasons, who paid for the sculpture, rather than his failed tenure as a general.

Pike convinced and led a number of Native American tribes into battle on behalf of the Southern cause, losing badly at Pea Ridge. Facing charges of misappropriating funds and allowing his troops to scalp Union soldiers, he fled the Confederate Army and mailed in his resignation. Eventually, Pike was arrested and charged with treason. Later, he was tried for the same crime by the United States—making Pike an accused traitor in the eyes of both governments. The Confederates essentially let it go, and Andrew Johnson gave him a pardon.

After the war, Pike spent time in Tennessee, where some allege he fell in with the Klu Klux Klan and helped form their rituals, though hard evidence does not exist for the claim. Whether or not he was a bona fide KKK member, Pike was certainly once a member of the nativist Know-Nothing American Party and an avowed racist.

[snip]

The Freemasons—who generally neglect to mention racism and treason in literature that extols Pike as a "jurist, orator, philosopher, scholar, soldier, and poet [whose renown] extends throughout the world"—sponsored and paid for the 11-foot bronze statue, which sits on a pedestal at 3rd and D streets NW. But it took an act of Congress in 1898 to approve its placement on land administered by the National Park Service. (For a more detailed account on Pike's life and a history of the statue, see this 2005 DCist story)

It goes on, but that's the gist of it. A copy of Grosso and Racine's letter appears below. (Click to enlarge.)

The brouhaha was immediately picked up by Huffington Post, so now that site's readership has also been treated to the "Pike=Confederate=Klan=Freemason=Racists" canard. I attempted to comment on the DCist story and to contact its author Rachel Sadon, as well as Grosso's office. It was met with silence from the latter, and my comment was immediately removed and marked as spam by the former. No dissenters allowed, I guess. That seems to be the way things go these days. Since this got its initial coverage on Tuesday, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s delegate to Congress, has decided to weigh in and issued a statement suggesting that the statue be boxed up and shipped to Arkansas, where Pike once lived. (He was actually born in Boston, but I'm guessing those folks don't want him there either, since they're busy trying to tamp down their own statuary problems at the moment.)

The ongoing flap since then has been reported and commented on Arturo De Hoyos' Facebook page all week long. I bring up Art for a very pragmatic reason. The "DCist" author, the D.C. Council, and Norton herself are all right there in D.C. The Supreme Council's House of the Temple which contains virtually all of Pike's major and minor writings and his vast personal library, along with at least two of the world's leading scholars about him—Art and Brent Morris—are sitting right there in a great big, high visibility building in their hometown with them. But neither Ms. Sadon nor the Council could just go there and ask to see what is being claimed about Pike instead of just parroting old Lyndon LaRouche idiocy and other agitprop. 

Pike was born and raised in Boston, but Pike and his family were living in Arkansas before and during the Civil War. He had lived among Indian tribes in the West in prior years with whom he was sympathetic. That's why he was compelled by the Confederacy to enlist and command Indian troops. He was commissioned in November 1861 and resigned March 1862 in disgust and felt disgraced specifically BECAUSE of their savagery in the wake of the Pea Ridge catastrophe that he had been unable to control. He was a Confederate officer for less than six months.

Pike’s purported membership in the early Ku Klux Klan can neither be categorically proved nor disproved, but since neither organization ever once attempted to cash in on his alleged position, membership, or any other supposed role in the Klan’s formation at any time, before or after his death, there is no evidence to perpetuate such a tale anyway. However the single unattributed source of the initial false assertion has been known by legitimate researchers for more than 25 years. There is zero proof.

The persistent accusation that Pike wrote the Klan’s rituals has also never had any basis in fact. Rituals of the Klan versus a respectable study of Pike’s own voluminous works make it instantly obvious that they are not the work of the same pen. Even a casual comparison would render the assertion absurd on its face. While Pike quite openly admitted that he had no desire to socialize or intermingle with blacks on a personal basis—which was FAR from an unusual position throughout ALL of America at that time—nothing in the stacks of his books and private writings has ever been found that would support the open race hatred one would expect to find in a man posthumously accused of having been so intimately involved in the Klan’s original Reconstruction-era formation. 

According to an article in the Philalethes from August 1993 by Gary Scott (reprinted on Ed King's MasonicInfo.com website HERE):

There are no records extant from the late 1860s - early 1870s period which connect Pike with the Klan. A Congressional investigation (U.S. House of Representatives, Report No. 2, 42nd Congress, 2nd Session, Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States Washington, D.C., U. S. Printing Office, 1872) into the activities of the Reconstruction Era Klan includes material from 1868 to 1871. There are references to alleged Klan leaders in several states, but no mention of Pike.

Further, during additional extensive (13 volumes) Congressional investigations into the Klan and the subsequent report of their findings published in 1921, Albert Pike’s name shows up precisely once, only indirectly as being a speaker in a public park at a totally unrelated event that did not involve any Klan activity or organizers at all. His name was simply mentioned casually by an attendee who was describing a flag dedication ceremony at the time. Pike was a near legendary figure during his life, and even more lionized in death by the Scottish Rite. He was NEVER mentioned in the Congressional inquiries and investigations in the 1870s into the "Ku Klux problem." By the early 1920s during the massive period of increase in Masonic membership, if the United States Congress had EVER connected Pike’s name to the Klan, it would have been international news among Masons, who made up a substantial portion of that period's swelling KKK membership. And given the way the Simmons/Evans/Stephenson era Klan of the 1920s was so enthusiastically promoted across the country by traveling, commissioned salesmen to millions of members in other fraternities, they certainly would have actively played up any possible association with Pike posthumously if it existed. It did not. Even the Washington Post, the African-American paper The Washington Informer, AND the DCist website itself came to this very same conclusion in 1995 and 2005 when this silliness was all trotted out before.

Pike wrote only ONE known editorial immediately after the war even referring to the Klan. He wrote that he thought there was a need for some kind of fraternal organization for disenfranchised Southerners who, like Pike himself, had their property confiscated in the Reconstruction period, and that such a group might exercise an organized political opposition that was "mutual, peaceful, lawful self-defense" over what he felt were unduly punitive and illegal measures by the North. (His land holdings were seized and sold at a tax sale, preventing him from even bequeathing them to his family after his death, even if he couldn't profit from them in life.) However, he felt the Ku Klux Klan itself was nothing but a disorganized mess that would never amount to much of any value. This was during its earliest formative days before the KKK became just shorthand for almost any night-riding vigilante group that began terrorizing Northerners, "scalawag" Southerners, school teachers, administrators, and certainly the newly freed blacks.

Pike WAS a supporter of social segregation, just as probably 85% of all Americans were in that age, North or South. He also recognized the immediate post-war problem with suddenly inserting freed slaves, kept in deliberate general ignorance by the slave holding system of the time, suddenly being thrust into positions of government or administrative offices. All Southerners at the time undoubtedly noticed that purportedly more "enlightened" Northern legislatures and city halls and Congressional staff offices (to say nothing of elected officials) weren't exactly packed with educated blacks themselves, and they became openly hostile over the blatant hypocrisy that Reconstruction was forcing on them. Northerners who sought to forcibly change the South were scarcely leading by their example, and were no quicker to embrace integration at any level. The end of slavery merely stopped the industry and the institution. But even in states where no actual Jim Crow laws were eventually passed, the practices and the mindset were almost every bit as widespread north of the Mason-Dixon line for decades after the Civil War.

So, were Pike's views on race for his time and place "repugnant?" Or was he approaching it as Pike approached just about everything else in his life, by studying the prior civilizations and societies that had dealt with enslaved populations to see how they evolved in order to shape his own beliefs as the post war period unfolded? Depending on exactly when he was writing, he certainly believed American blacks were ignorant. Earlier in his life, he clearly ascribed that to an inherited trait. Later in life, that didn't seem to be the case. Possibly because of his encounters with erudite Negro Masons, both in letters and in person, often from foreign countries. There's no way to tell now, but human beings evolve through their experiences, and Pike was no different in that respect.

He DID indeed disapprove of any compelled race mixing in Freemasonry. So did the overwhelming majority of American society in almost every walk of life. Even the "Negro" grand lodges spreading westward after 1856 and into the South did not advocate for full integration on a widespread, practical basis. While Pike was decidedly against co-mingling with black Freemasons, he defended the separate Prince Hall-descended Masonic organizations as perfectly legitimate. Pike happily shared personal, autographed copies of his Scottish Rite Masonic degree rituals with his counterpart in the parallel Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction for black Prince Hall Masons, Thornton A. Jackson, in order to assist their fledgling organization sometime between 1887 and 1891. In writings of the period, Jackson described Pike as his friend. Curious attitude towards a man who is supposed to have been just a plain old, white, garden-variety, Protestant hater of blacks, and supposed cornerstone of the Ku Klux Klan.

Pike's statue in DC commemorates his position in the Scottish Rite and NOT his very brief role in the Confederate Army, nor even his pre-war life, during which he defended Southern slave owners' Constitutional property rights as their attorney in several cases. He was a lawyer, the Constitution and the Supreme Court declared slaves to be "property," and Pike argued his cases on that basis. Abstractly, he knew slavery to be wrong morally, and had studied the subject as an historical issue. He wrote that slavery in advanced civilizations was always a doomed system that would fail given time, and he believed the same would come to pass in America, for moral, practical, and financial reasons. He didn't approve of slavery or embrace it, he simply recognized it as a fact at the time. Legally, he defended clients according to the law until the law was changed otherwise. Lawyers today are rarely neither any more nor less principled. If the statue depicted Pike in uniform and was celebrating him as some hero of the Confederacy, the current detractors might have a leg to stand on. But it does not and they don't.

Nevertheless, it can be argued that if this is going to be an ongoing controversy and not blow over this time as it did in the 1990s (when it was much, much worse), the last thing Freemasonry wants or needs is a symbolic lightening rod of criticism and ire attached to it. Especially if it becomes a national focal point for the current frenzy on the 24-hour cable networks. I suspect they've been scouting around the parking lot out back of the House of the Temple this week for the best setting for it, should it come down to being relocated. The National Parks Service is currently reviewing the request. In the 90s, a bill was actually introduced in Congress to remove it, so it may get more intense again. But the question may become not what the Scottish Rite is FORCED to do, but what they will find themselves COMPELLED to do.

Yesterday, D.C. radio station WTOP actually DID have reporter Amanda Iacone drive up 16th Street to the HOT and interviewed Art de Hoyos for a follow up story. This exchange was reported:

“I think that people have misunderstood the intent of that statue,” said Arturo de Hoyos, grand archivist for the Scottish Rite in D.C.

The Scottish Rite is the largest branch of Freemasonry in the world. And the regional headquarters for the southern half of the United States is based on 16th Street at the House of the Temple, where Pike is interred.

His statue, erected at the dawn of the 20th Century by the Scottish Rite, celebrates his contributions to Freemasonry and his life as a civilian after the war, de Hoyos said.

Still, the organization will support whatever decision is made regarding the statue’s future, he said.

“We certainly don’t want a monument, which was really placed there to honor the fraternity, to be a divisive point within the community on racial matters,” de Hoyos said.

De Hoyos described Pike as a “man of his times,” who was known to abandon ideas and views over the course of his life. That included his views on slavery and he later developed a friendship with a leader of Prince Hall, a black Freemason society.

“Before and during the Civil War, he accepted slavery as a social institution …. He was a person who actually looked forward to a time when slaves would be free men,” de Hoyos said.

Finally, on the aforementioned website of Ed King's, he reprinted a piece that appeared in the February 1993 issue of the Philalethes. It was written by the Reverend Howard L. Woods, a Christian minister who served for ten years as the Grand Master of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Arkansas F&AM. In 1991, he was invited as the Lecturer for the Philalethes Society, the first Prince Hall Mason ever asked to do so, and still many years before Prince Hall recognition became widespread:

The Albert Pike Statue: Let It Stand

There is no love lost between Prince Hall Masons and the memory of the late Albert Pike, Masonic Historian, writer, alleged ritualist for the Ku Klux Klan, but, if Freemasonry is to remain the bulwark of free-thinking people, then, "Let the statue remain!"

Like the natures he wrote about, Albert Pike showed the light and dark sides of his own soul, when with one breath he spoke of his willingness to give up his Freemasonry rather than recognize the Negro as a 'Masonic Brother' and with another breath, declared that every man should be free, for a free man is an asset, while a slave is a liability. Mankind is that way, and as long as the statue stands, America and Freemasonry will survive.

Let the statue be torn down and America and Freemasonry will be in jeopardy, for one would have to wonder, "What would be next?" As a Prince Hall Mason, an African American and supposedly free-thinker, I can see a higher power than the mortal mind of Albert Pike guiding his pen as he wrote such beautiful words of life without an occasional helping hand from someone "bigger than you or I."

Let the statue stand, even if it is proven that Albert Pike did write ritual for the Ku Klux Klan; more ignoble deeds have been done by others without sacrifice of their historic heroism.

Let the statue stand as a reminder that the good and evil of men are in equilibrium within us, and we all should strive for perfection now and in the future, not in the past. Let the statue stand !

--Rev. Howard L. Woods, Grand Master, Prince Hall Masons of Arkansas.

I'll just add, with absolutely no sense of irony whatsoever, that out of the 51 U.S. jurisdictions and 10 Canadian ones, the Grand Lodge of Arkansas still doesn't recognize their Prince Hall counterparts, along with eight other Southern grand lodges. But that's a different post for another day. Woods nevertheless defended the Pike statue at a time when just a mere handful of predominantly white grand lodges recognized Prince Hall Masons as legitimate anywhere. As both a minister and a grand master, he saw the value in being able to hold aloft what is best in men, and drape a mantle of charity and forgiveness around faults. That wisdom is as valid today as it was in 1993, if not more so.

I'm all for being offended over statues and advocating their removal, but only on artistic grounds as an offense against the eye. You can start with this one of Nathan Bedford Forrest that offends tens of thousands on a daily basis as they drive past it in Nashville, Tennessee. No one can possibly argue that it wouldn't be of greater service to mankind as a submerged artificial coral reef off Key Biscayne. 

Don't advocate for the removal of statues over some reevaluation of past repugnant behavior or attitudes from an earlier era, no matter how real or imagined. Use them teach with, however you may choose to do that. That's what they're there for, no matter when or why they were first erected. Your own hero today may become the next generation's villain who may be scraped from the statehouse lawn and paved over so that person's memory is forever removed from the collective consciousness, too. Whom we honor and when becomes its own textbook from which to learn, and toppling statues is no less abhorrent than book burning. The reason that so many knee-jerk comparisons to Orwell quotes or equivalencies with the Taliban blowing up Afghan Buddhas or ISIS leveling Palmyra have been so frequent this week is because they are so true. It IS the same thing.

There are way too many people running loose these days with a mission dedicated to stopping debate, discussion, conversation—IDEAS. I never would have believed Americans would voluntarily line up for that kind of intellectual circular firing squad, but it's happening now. Don't fall for it, and for the love of all that is decent in the world, don't let your children fall for it, either. And if you're a Freemason, you should be the first guy in line to put a stop to it. This fraternity got its real start by being a crucible for the Enlightenment. It's high time we start defending it and encouraging it again.

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UPDATE: On Friday night 8/19/2017, somebody tossed a bottle of red paint on the statue during what the media reported as a "peaceful demonstration." A spokeswoman during the demonstration declared it to be one of "these racist statues" that has to be removed.

Right on cue.

The American Zeus

Thomas Jefferson referred to the men who drafted the Constitution as an “assembly of demigods,” so it was hardly a surprise when Congress decided to immortalize George Washington in a similarly magisterial fashion. Greek symbolism was much admired and sought after in the Federal City, and so it seemed like a scathingly good idea at the time to immortalize the President in suitably mythical fashion.

In 1832, the sculptor Horatio Greenough was commissioned by Congress to create the ultimate statue of Washington. It was to be placed in the rotunda of the capitol, underneath the Constantino Brumidi fresco in the dome’s ceiling ("Apotheosis of Washington") which depicted the president ascending among the clouds into heaven, surrounded by thirteen angelic spirits. Enthusiastic fans encouraged Greenough to create what they believed would be the ultimate image of the hero of the Revolution and Father of the Country, with just the proper amount of veneration.

What they got eight years later was a representation of George, sitting, with his lower extremities wrapped in a toga, and his torso naked as a proverbial jaybird. Greenough patterned the image after a classical statue of the Greek god Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The statue was installed in the rotunda in 1842, where it was almost immediately greeted with hoots of derision. Few had ever really thought of George Washington being naked before. In fact, Nathanial Hawthorne summed up the public sentiment when he said, “I imagine he was born with his clothes on, and his hair powdered, and made a stately bow on his first appearance in the world.” Others put it more bluntly, saying it looked like the President president was emerging from a long soak in a bathtub and reaching for a towel.

Equally distressing was that, while it was not quite as big as the original 40-foot statue original of Zeus carved by Phidias in 456 BC, from which it was copied, it sure weighed like it, tipping the scales at more than twenty tons. After a year of sitting in its designated location, it was determined to be too heavy and dangerous to the floor over the underground crypt that had originally been designed for Washington’s body, so the big, expensive embarrassment was moved to a little-seen area outside.

When the weather finally began to damage the carving, it was hauled off to the Smithsonian in 1908, and installed in the National Museum of American History in 1964, where it can now be seen giving his solemn Olympian blessing to the second floor escalators.

Washington sits on a throne, its panels containing the image of Helios, one of Zeus’ innumerable sons, carrying the sun across the sky on a horse-drawn chariot. It harkens back to Ben Franklin’s remarks concerning the heroic figure of Washington as he sat in a chair during the Continental Congress. The image of the sun was carved on the back of the general’s chair. (See the "Rising Sun" chair here.)

The other side of the throne shows the image of another son of Zeus. The baby Hercules and his twin brother Iphicles are shown in their crib. Their mother, Hera, became so enraged when she discovered Zeus had fathered Hercules by a mortal woman that she threw a snake into their crib. The infant Hercules is shown killing the snake with his bare hands. A five-pointed star is shown over the head of Hercules – an upside down pentagram, in case you’re concerned by such images – with the bottom point of the star touching his head.

Fringe author David Ickes has noted that the statue of Washington bears a striking resemblance in its pose to the famous illustration of Baphomet, drawn by French occultist Eliphas Levi. Both have the right arm pointing skyward, and the left pointing downward, in the manner of the alchemical phrase, “as above, so below.” Therefore, Ickes suggests, Washington’s statue is an illustration that he is somehow an evil incarnation of Levi’s satanic imagery. It should be noted that Greenough's statue predates Levi's image by 20 years, which didn't appear until 1860 in his book, 'Transcendental Magic' (and which was never intended to be Satanic anyway).

But there is a more plausable explanation that may really capture the peculiar reason for Washington’s odd posture in this statue. The original design of the Washington Monument by Robert Mills (left) was supposed to have been a Greek-style temple, topped by a sculpture of Washington in a chariot, and pulled by six horses. Greenough’s statue looks strikingly similar to the posture of Washington in Mills’ conceptual drawing. The outstretched hand that holds a sword would have actually been holding the reins of the chariot. It is probable that Greenough likely designed the statue as a demo to get the entire commission of Washington, chariot and four horses for the monument.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and a more monumental, if austere, design was actually constructed, sans chariot.

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Mark Tabbert passed along a message today: "According to museum label, the statue shows Washington handing his sword back to the American people and pointing to Heaven. He is not assuming the role of a god, but of Cincinnatus and arguing that that our democratic republic will survive not by force of will, but by the grace of God."

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(Portions of this article are adapted from "Solomon's Builders")